If you think your day was bad

[Hans Tucker]

Saw this on Facebook and had to find out the story behind it.

On September 6, 2003, the satellite was badly damaged while being worked on at the Lockheed Martin Space Systems factory in Sunnyvale, California. The satellite fell to the floor as a team was turning it into a horizontal position. A NASA inquiry into the mishap determined that it was caused by a lack of procedural discipline throughout the facility. While the turn-over cart used during the procedure was in storage, a technician removed twenty-four bolts securing an adapter plate to it without documenting the action. The team subsequently using the cart to turn the satellite failed to check the bolts, as specified in the procedure, before attempting to move the satellite. Repairs to the satellite cost $135 million. Lockheed Martin agreed to forfeit all profit from the project to help pay for repair costs; they later took a $30 million charge relating to the incident. The remainder of the repair costs were paid by the United States government.

[jwoody]

Whoopsie! My bad!

[xelasnave]

Take it out of their pay.
Alex

[AstralTraveller]

At a withholding rate of 10% they will have a job for life. :lol:

[Dennis]

I wonder if there was a Checklist where the team had to "tick" each item on the Checklist to verify it met the pre-move requirements, or whether is was just a list of instructions with no check boxes to tick or initialise?

Ouch.:sadeyes:

Its times like these you so desperately need a Ctrl-Z or "Undo" Button.:)

Cheers

Dennis

[glend]

And then there was the Hubble optics debacle, which cost way more to fix, and then the extra shuttle service flight to install the new optical system. The shuttle solid fuel booster "O" ring issue which led to the loss of an entire shuttle crew and set the program back for years. These are only the ones we hear about. I am sure the "redo" totals are significant every year, and the larger the project the more contingency (time and money) is required. I have to wonder what is lurking in the James Webb Space Telescope program.

[xelasnave]

Thats a lot of damage...you would think it should manage a fall.
I recomend a frame over with safty chain held in place by a look the combination to which is know only to the president so if anything goes wrong he gets the blame.
But really they need to take a lesson from battle bots.
Alex

[xelasnave]

James Webb has to be spot on but if it fails maybe reconsider a mission to fix it...that will keep things going.
Alex

[leon]

What a tragic waste of money, and total incompetence for such a expensive project, they should have all been sacked

If that lot are so useless on such a project they should find alternative employment, obviously not much communication amoungst the
people working on the project, and no quality control.

Leon

[julianh72]

James Webb will be in an orbit for which there is no current or planned means of getting there to perform a rescue mission, so it has to be right first time.

[glend]

SpaceX could service it with its BFR. It is designed for multiple roles and certainly has the range.

[xelasnave]

I know.
I dont like being negative but something could go wrong.

I wonder if there is anything that could enable it to return to be fixed...now that could work...in fact that makes sense as you call call it back for a service or up grade...imagine in tennyears bring it back and onstall newxgear.
Alex

[Merlin66]

Glen,
Re the Shuttle "O" ring failure.
This was already identified as being outside operating parameters due to the weather and the launch was to be delayed....pressure from NASA pushed the engineers to accept - yeah there's a risk.....but it may be, just may be, it could be OK.
NASA then went ahead with the launch.