Condolences to the Glory team, and especially to the Taurus folks. I can only imagine the anguish of the Taurus team that suffered through OCO, then worked their butts off 2 years to fix the problem. Those are good, smart people who deserved a better fate. I am truly sorry.
I am concerned that they are going to find that whatever mistake caused the OCO failure will be the same as the cause of the Glory failure.
Quote from: Cherokee43v6 on 03/04/2011 12:55 pmI am concerned that they are going to find that whatever mistake caused the OCO failure will be the same as the cause of the Glory failure.I think that would be good actually... I'd rather it be one problem causing both, as opposed to two different issues and then you aren't sure what to fix.
AC-70 and -71 failed for the same cause (iced up turbopump, not rag-ed up turbopump), and we didn't pick the right cause after the first one.
Quote from: Antares on 03/04/2011 12:58 pmAC-70 and -71 failed for the same cause (iced up turbopump, not rag-ed up turbopump), and we didn't pick the right cause after the first one.Is there any typical "strategy" for return to flight after back-to-back failures caused by similar issues like these? Demo flights with no real value or some low risk payload or would Taurus be eligible for another several hundred million $ mission? Basically, would this cause NASA to think twice before flying again before the fairing problems have demonstrably been rectified?
Quote from: Antares on 03/04/2011 12:58 pmAC-70 and -71 failed for the same cause (iced up turbopump, not rag-ed up turbopump), and we didn't pick the right cause after the first one. Is there any typical "strategy" for return to flight after back-to-back failures caused by similar issues like these? Demo flights with no real value or some low risk payload or would Taurus be eligible for another several hundred million $ mission? Basically, would this cause NASA to think twice before flying again before the fairing problems have demonstrably been rectified?
Quote from: ugordan on 03/04/2011 01:39 pmQuote from: Antares on 03/04/2011 12:58 pmAC-70 and -71 failed for the same cause (iced up turbopump, not rag-ed up turbopump), and we didn't pick the right cause after the first one. Is there any typical "strategy" for return to flight after back-to-back failures caused by similar issues like these? Demo flights with no real value or some low risk payload or would Taurus be eligible for another several hundred million $ mission? Basically, would this cause NASA to think twice before flying again before the fairing problems have demonstrably been rectified?I would suggest a suborbital launch to demonstrate clean separation of the fairing - the jettison event doesn't happen very high, so suborbital would be sufficient.