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Russia Blames a Bad Sensor For Its Failed Soyuz Rocket Launch (wired.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: On Thursday, Russian officials held a press conference to reveal that they have determined what caused last month's Soyuz mid-flight failure. The culprit: a damaged sensor on one of the rocket's four boosters responsible for stage separation. With the investigation complete, the officials announced that they will move up the date of the next crew launch to the International Space Station. Russian space agency officials confirmed that the faulty sensor, designed to signal stage separation, had caused one of the boosters to improperly separate. This led the first and second stages of the rocket to collide, which then triggered the vehicle's emergency abort system.
Video of the incident, released today by the space agency, shows the accident from the rocket's point of view. In it, the booster in question strikes the core of the rocket, causing a significant jolt, which triggered the abort. According to officials, the afflicted sensor rod was bent slightly during the assembly of the rocket. To check for any handling errors that might have also affected other rockets, Russian officials said that all assembled Soyuz rockets -- and their attached booster pack -- will be taken apart and put together anew.
Video of the incident, released today by the space agency, shows the accident from the rocket's point of view. In it, the booster in question strikes the core of the rocket, causing a significant jolt, which triggered the abort. According to officials, the afflicted sensor rod was bent slightly during the assembly of the rocket. To check for any handling errors that might have also affected other rockets, Russian officials said that all assembled Soyuz rockets -- and their attached booster pack -- will be taken apart and put together anew.
Scott Manley has a good video analysis.
The problem was with a bent pin seemingly 'forced' in during assembly rather than the sensor itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
No soup for you.
After all, in Soviet Russia, Soviet Russia blames BeauHD.
RUSSIA!!! RUSSIA!!! RUSSIA!!!
American components, Russian components - all made in Taiwan!
In Soviet Russia, sensors damage YOU!
Props for the abort system which apparently did its job flawlessly, but... it's a bit worrying that one bent pin on a sensor can do in the entire system.
You know there is a reason that "rocket science" is the standard analogy phrase used for a difficult endeavor. Rockets are chock full of seemingly mundane things that can result in disaster if they don't perform perfectly in extremely high stress conditions. Aside from maybe military combat equipment I can't think of any devices we make which experience tougher conditions with less safety margin.
A Beowulf cluster of damaged sensors.
It was that or the Russians and they're hardly going to blame themselves, are they?
I suppose they could blame Mexicans but most of them don't even know where Mexico is. On second thoughts, that doesn't seem to prevent Americans doing it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
but think of all the Apple employees retirements you are helping.
Was it the same drill guy who was up there trying to turn the ISS into swiss cheese?
is bound to fail
Remember when an assembly worker had hammered-in the Proton-M sensors upside down? And instead of looking at their QA process they announced something in the lines of "don't worry, we found the worker and fired him"? I remember it was discussed here how this mentality would lead to more control issues, and it does appear they have learned nothing.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Solution: 3 sensors (because if you have 2 clocks giving you different times, which one is correct?).
Medical devices don't have to deal with the acceleration and vibration of a space launch. They also don't have a $10000/lb fuel bill to worry about.
Hermaphroditic connectors have advantages also.
Sometimes connectors have ambiguous gender.
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While NASA's high quality standards towards Boeing and SpaceX have been preventing American spacecraft from entering the manned spaceflight market for years, the agency does not seem to exercise the same high standards towards Russians.
As a result US astronauts are still forced to fly on older less than perfectly safe Russian spacecraft instead of newer and better (but not good enough for NASA) US spacecraft.
Hopefully medical equipment, especially life-support and implants, are made to very high standards.
Being made to high standards doesn't mean the product has to operate in a high physical stress environment. My company makes medical equipment and none of it is subjected to the sorts of forces and stresses you find in a rocket launch nor does it have the weight vs performance limitations. Furthermore most medical equipment doesn't have to deal with the tyranny of the rocket equation and the engineering limitations it imposes. Everything in a rocket has to be made as light as possible which causes some really tough engineering challenges - particularly because it necessarily means sacrificing safety margin and/or adding substantial cost in a lot of cases.
That's not a knock on medical equipment or the quality of it. Just observing that it doesn't have to function on the pointy end of a controlled explosion with minimal safety margin.
Military combat equipment doesn't need a safety margin. It's supposed to be unsafe.
It does if you want it actually do its job. I assure you that you want as much safety margin in your tank armor as possible. You want your rifle to still be able to shoot straight if it gets some dirt in it. You want your A10 to still be able to fly home after getting hit with some anti-aircraft fire. You want your engine to still operate in a dusty and super hot desert because you'll die if it fails on you. You want your submarine to be able to dive deeper than you hope to need it to dive. Safety margin in military hardware is vital. The problem is that unlike most other products, someone else is going to be actively trying to destroy your hardware and kill the operator in the process in the most aggressive manner imaginable which makes it pretty much the highest stress environment possible. The armor on the side of a battleship isn't half a meter thick because they think it looks stylish.
The stress for rockets comes from the fact that they are being asked to be reliable under tremendous force, heat, and pressure while being built as light as possible. That's a tough environment but nothing compares to war for being hard on equipment and people.