And this is important because if you assume that "Material Certification" only means the raw material portion of a finished purchased part, and not that the finished part itself meets ALL the specifications of the engineering documentation that it was designed to handle...
I have no insight into those numbers, but a post on parabolicarc says NASA has verified the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 development cost numbers:QuoteSpaceX has publicly indicated that the development cost for Falcon 9 launch vehicle was approximately $300 million. Additionally, approximately $90 million was spent developing the Falcon 1 launch vehicle which did contribute to some extent to the Falcon 9, for a total of $390 million. NASA has verified these costs. http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/05/31/nasa-analysis-falcon-9-cheaper-traditional-approach/And according to that same article, NASA's own analysis said it would have cost them between $1.7B and $4.0B to develop F9. So SpaceX beat the NASA development cost estimate by at least a factor of 5, and possibly a factor of 10+.Extremely impressive.
SpaceX has publicly indicated that the development cost for Falcon 9 launch vehicle was approximately $300 million. Additionally, approximately $90 million was spent developing the Falcon 1 launch vehicle which did contribute to some extent to the Falcon 9, for a total of $390 million. NASA has verified these costs.
In looking at the design development process SpaceX uses it reminds me of the tremendous differences in the Spiral vs Waterfall software development methods. Spiral is design-implement-test-deploy-design-implement-test-deploy... where Waterfall is study-analyze-design-implement-test-deploy-maintain. If the design falls short it is very difficult to overcome these design faults in maintenance phase of the traditional Waterfall method where only the lowest levels are reworked to meet the higher level designs without starting all over, whereas in the Spiral methodology redesign at higher levels is part of the process of evolving the design to make it better and better.Also the time between design start and deploy is very short in the spiral vs the long time for the waterfall. Since time is money also each iteration in the Spiral is a lot cheaper than the waterfall to get to a deployed system. The drawback is that the Spiral method deploys the minimum system and increases it in each iteration where waterfall deploys the complete end post system.From the historical of SpaceX improving the F9 every 2.5 years v1.0->v1.1->FT they are definitely using the Spiral vs the design and done Waterfall that NASA and other LV developers use.
QuoteAnd this is important because if you assume that "Material Certification" only means the raw material portion of a finished purchased part, and not that the finished part itself meets ALL the specifications of the engineering documentation that it was designed to handle...That's what "materials certification" means within NASA...
...and I'd be very surprised if it meant anything different inside SpaceX given how many of their employees have prior experience with NASA standards and the close coordination SpaceX has with their customer...not to mention the requirements NASA is/will be levying on manned F9's.
The way the finished part is determined to meet ALL the specifications is by testing and/or inspection that verifies each spec requirement, and that isn't called "material certification," it's called "acceptance testing," ie verifying that the received part meets all specs before the buyer formally accepts the item.
But on all the programs I've worked (Pegasus, Taurus, Transfer Orbit Stage), the "materials certifications" from vendors were always certification only of raw materials properties and never implied verification of part functionality, etc. Those spec requirements were always verified by separate acceptance tests or inspections.
Yes, there's team spirit, but there's also individual accountability, and someone inside SX made the engineering/cost decision not to require 100% load testing of each strut as an acceptance criterion. And after the failure I'll bet there were a lot of SXer's breathing a quiet sigh of relief that they were not "that person."
You are trying to extrapolate how the private sector (and actually a unique sub-segment of it) works by applying government rules to it. That doesn't work.
The question you raise about "Material Certification" is whether the supplier does any inspection or validation for what they produce. You imply "NO", that all they would do is supply a raw material certification and leave it at that - if the part is wrong, then the customer has to catch it. I don't believe this is what happens.
Maybe the strut vendor did some random sample load testing in each batch of struts, but such testing should not be confused with "materials certification" because they are two completely different things, and someone like Elon would never use the very specific term "materials certification" to mean random sample load testing on a batch of finished struts.
Or is there an indication that someone at SpaceX once explicitly asserted that 100% load testing was not required for that strut?
Quote from: oldAtlas_Eguy on 12/27/2015 07:31 pmIn looking at the design development process SpaceX uses it reminds me of the tremendous differences in the Spiral vs Waterfall software development methods. Spiral is design-implement-test-deploy-design-implement-test-deploy... where Waterfall is study-analyze-design-implement-test-deploy-maintain. If the design falls short it is very difficult to overcome these design faults in maintenance phase of the traditional Waterfall method where only the lowest levels are reworked to meet the higher level designs without starting all over, whereas in the Spiral methodology redesign at higher levels is part of the process of evolving the design to make it better and better.Also the time between design start and deploy is very short in the spiral vs the long time for the waterfall. Since time is money also each iteration in the Spiral is a lot cheaper than the waterfall to get to a deployed system. The drawback is that the Spiral method deploys the minimum system and increases it in each iteration where waterfall deploys the complete end post system.From the historical of SpaceX improving the F9 every 2.5 years v1.0->v1.1->FT they are definitely using the Spiral vs the design and done Waterfall that NASA and other LV developers use.With Musk coming directly from a software background, this approach should be of no surprise. I'm guessing, but I would think Musk looked at the incumbents (mostly/all waterfall?), and thought they were beatable by a more agile company.Time will tell, but he's made a good start.
QuoteYou are trying to extrapolate how the private sector (and actually a unique sub-segment of it) works by applying government rules to it. That doesn't work.It does when SpaceX's main customer is NASA.
They have to speak the same language to some extent, and meet NASA requirements for man-rating F9.
What you're suggesting is that SpaceX doesn't understand what NASA means by a "materials certification" or has a different definition of it, when "materials certification" is going to be a huge paperwork requirement levied by NASA for manned F9 and crewed Dragon flights. In my view it's highly unlikely that SpaceX doesn't understand or has a different definition.
SpaceX provides a service, not a product. Why does SpaceX need to deliver any sort of "materials certification"?
Quote from: Coastal Ron on 12/28/2015 02:31 amSpaceX provides a service, not a product. Why does SpaceX need to deliver any sort of "materials certification"?We've already seen the in-depth review process that SpaceX had to go through with the Air Force to certify the F9 for DoD. There's no way they got the F9 certified without being able to show the Air Force they have basic QA processes like requiring materials certifications for the raw materials in critical components like tanks. That's just a basic part of a QA program, and if you can't even do a basic thing like verify the source, composition and strength of your various raw materials, there is simply no way the Air Force is going to trust you with a $1B payload.
Same thing for NASA. No way they are going to allow their astronauts on an F9 unless they can verify it meets all their man-rating requirements, including having materials certifications and traceability per the usual NASA standards for manned spaceflight.
QuoteOr is there an indication that someone at SpaceX once explicitly asserted that 100% load testing was not required for that strut?*snip* The point is that it's up to SpaceX to write the required acceptance criteria into the contract. Obviously they didn't require 100% load testing. That was either a conscious decision or an oversight by one or more people.
Quote from: Kabloona on 12/27/2015 09:14 pmQuoteOr is there an indication that someone at SpaceX once explicitly asserted that 100% load testing was not required for that strut?*snip* The point is that it's up to SpaceX to write the required acceptance criteria into the contract. Obviously they didn't require 100% load testing. That was either a conscious decision or an oversight by one or more people.Nor should they have. Batch testing should be more than sufficient to catch gross defects in lots of parts, since the part was over-designed by a factor of 3.
You seem to completely exclude the possibility that they would require component testing from a supplier...
But you keep only focusing on raw material.
NASA has no visibility into the component level parts of a Falcon 9 - it is a commercial service, not a product that NASA is buying.
The fact that SpaceX did not try to sue the strut supplier indicates they recognize their own responsibility for not requiring 100% load testing for acceptance. We can assume the provider fulfilled their obligation to deliver the product with specified testing.
Quote from: Jcc on 12/29/2015 02:46 pmThe fact that SpaceX did not try to sue the strut supplier indicates they recognize their own responsibility for not requiring 100% load testing for acceptance. We can assume the provider fulfilled their obligation to deliver the product with specified testing.Or they negotiated some compensation but agreed to keep fact that confidential. It's not safe to assume that we know about everything that occurs. A transfer of money is a lot easier to hide than a rocket.