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Vostochny Launch Building Built To the Wrong Size
schwit1 writes: The Russians have just discovered that their Soyuz 2 rocket does not fit in the building just finished at their new spaceport at Vostochny: "The cutting-edge facility was meant be ready for launches of Soyuz-2 rockets in December, but an unidentified space agency told the TASS news agency late Thursday that the rocket would not fit inside the assembly building where its parts are stacked and tested before launch. The building 'has been designed for a different modification of the Soyuz rocket,' the source said, according to news website Medusa, which picked up the story from TASS." The rocket had just been delivered to Vostochny for assembly, so this report, though unconfirmed at this time, fits well with current events.
My grandpa worked for Lockheed's space and missile division way back in the day. He said the attitude sensors for one of the rockets could be installed (or connected; I forget which) backwards and the rocket would think it was pointed in the opposite direction of its actual orientation and try to turn around. The bureaucracy involved in redesigning that single part was so cumbersome they just added a new pre-flight check. Send someone up the gantry to push the rocket and verify that the readings matched the push.
Fast-forward a few decades and one of my roommates worked for Lockheed. This was when they had a series of failed launches and were trying to figure out what the heck was going on. My roommate was on the team investigating one of the botched launches and they came to the conclusion that the rocket decided it was pointed 180 degrees from its actual orientation and it tried to turn around.
CSB, I have some telemetry strips from the Discoverer launches way back in the day. Found them when cleaning out my grandpa's garage a few years ago. Almost threw them out because they'd clearly been defiled by mice but I unrolled one a little bit and realized what they were.