Slashdot Mirror
Northrop Grumman, Not SpaceX, Reported To Be at Fault For Loss of Top-Secret Zuma Satellite (cnbc.com)
Northrop Grumman built and operated the components that failed during the controversial January launch of the U.S. spy satellite known as Zuma, WSJ reported over the weekend. From a report: Two independent investigations, made up of federal and industry officials, pointed to Northrop's payload adapter as the cause of the satellite's loss, the report said, citing people familiar with the probes. The payload adapter is a key part of deploying a satellite in orbit, connecting the satellite to the upper stage of a rocket. Zuma is believed to have cost around $3.5 billion to develop, according to the report. The satellite was funded through a process that received a lesser degree of oversight from Congress compared with similar national security-related satellites, industry officials said.
I suspect that it doesn't matter how much SpaceX complains, it's going to be very difficult beating a Beltway pro like Northrop-Grumman in who gets the ultimate blame in Washington.
If I could bet on things, Northrop-Grumman would get another $3.5B to replicate Zuma and SpaceX will have to undergo an extensive Air Force review of the Falcon 9, the fairing, their launch procedures and aspects of their design.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
I once worked for a company that got bought out by Northrop Grumman during the Bush Jr. years. The company I worked for built many of these satellites and had a really good reputation at the time of the hostile takeover. Northrop Grumman at the time had a long history of failures and making ships that were not even sea-worthy let alone battle hardened. Northrop did things like have all of the ship's computers tied to one Windows NT 3.51 server and that server would always crash and corrupt everything including ship guidance with no manual backup systems, so the ships would just be adrift at sea and have to be towed back to port. When Northrop Grumman took over, they screwed all of us over and went out of their way to get rid of all of the good engineers. Their management was very greedy and very hostile towards all of us. We were pretty much all replaced with "their people" and outsourced labor. Yes, US government military contractor work paid for by the American tax dollar has been extensively outsourced to foreign countries en mass by Northrop Grumman. Now the programs I worked on are complete failures under their control when before those very same programs were going great.
Really I would be surprised if Northrop Grumman made anything that actually worked. The greed at the top levels and bumbling incompetence everywhere including top levels means they are destined to fail at everything. You go through contract by contract and all you see are delay after delay, failure after failure with huge sums of taxpayer money going to their vertical monopoly on defense or more accurately the super wealthy at the top in a nationally sponsored welfare for the rich and politically connected, especially those who have been connected to the Bush'es.
It was $1B for the new satellite, $1B in profit, and $1.5B in kickbacks to the politicians. The replacement is going to cost the government $4B even though it will only be $0.5B to build. The cost savings and extra billing will be split evening between profit taking and kickbacks.