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Glory and OCO failures may have been traced to supplier test falsification by LouScheffer on 04 Aug, 2017 11:43
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Story from the Oregonian After failed space flights, NASA investigation leads to Portland claims an aluminum supplier falsified material tests, which may have lead to the fairing failures...
EDIT: Link was to wrong source, fixed. -
#1 by Almurray1958 on 04 Aug, 2017 11:55
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the link provided is for the BEPICOLOMBO TRAJECTORY OPTIONS TO MERCURY IN 2016 AND 2017, nothing to do with the topic.
I found this: http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2017/08/after_failed_space_flights_nas.html -
#2 by zubenelgenubi on 04 Aug, 2017 15:30
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(My LIKE is for Lou and the journalism, not the chronic criminality of the Portland, OR operations of Anodizing, Inc. and Sapa Extrusions.)
I would encourage all of you to read the article.
Wow. Just wow.
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#3 by Kabloona on 12 Aug, 2017 02:44
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Wow, gotta feel bad for Orbital, probably burned not once but twice by an unscrupulous supplier. IIRC, after the first failure, the aluminum frangible joint on the fairing was identified as a possible failure point, possibly due to improper heat treat, etc. So the aluminum joint was looked at. But apparently the faking of the materials certs wasn't discovered at that time. I doubt anyone suspected the supplier just plain lied. What a shame.
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#4 by Targeteer on 01 May, 2019 03:30
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April 30, 2019
RELEASE 19-036
NASA Investigation Uncovers Cause of Two Science Mission Launch Failures
Workers monitor NASA's Glory upper stack as a crane lifts it from a stationary rail for attachment to the Taurus XL rocket
On Space Launch Complex 576-E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, Orbital Sciences workers monitor NASA's Glory upper stack as a crane lifts it from a stationary rail for attachment to the Taurus XL rocket's Stage 0.
Credits: NASA
NASA Launch Services Program (LSP) investigators have determined the technical root cause for the Taurus XL launch failures of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) and Glory missions in 2009 and 2011, respectively: faulty materials provided by aluminum manufacturer, Sapa Profiles, Inc. (SPI).
LSP’s technical investigation led to the involvement of NASA’s Office of the Inspector General and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). DOJ’s efforts, recently made public, resulted in the resolution of criminal charges and alleged civil claims against SPI, and its agreement to pay $46 million to the U.S. government and other commercial customers. This relates to a 19-year scheme that included falsifying thousands of certifications for aluminum extrusions to hundreds of customers.
NASA’s updated public summary of the launch failures, which was published Tuesday, comes after a multiyear technical investigation by LSP and updates the previous public summaries on the Taurus XL launch failures for the OCO and Glory missions. Those public summaries concluded that the launch vehicle fairing — a clamshell structure that encapsulates the satellite as it travels through the atmosphere — failed to separate on command, but no technical root cause had been identified. From NASA’s investigation, it is now known that SPI altered test results and provided false certifications to Orbital Sciences Corporation, the manufacturer of the Taurus XL, regarding the aluminum extrusions used in the payload fairing rail frangible joint. A frangible joint is a structural separation system that is initiated using ordnance.
“NASA relies on the integrity of our industry throughout the supply chain. While we do perform our own testing, NASA is not able to retest every single component. That is why we require and pay for certain components to be tested and certified by the supplier,” said Jim Norman, NASA’s director for Launch Services at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “When testing results are altered and certifications are provided falsely, missions fail. In our case, the Taurus XLs that failed for the OCO and Glory missions resulted in the loss of more than $700 million, and years of people’s scientific work. It is critical that we are able to trust our industry to produce, test and certify materials in accordance with the standards we require. In this case, our trust was severely violated.”
To protect the government supply chain, NASA suspended SPI from government contracting and proposed SPI for government-wide debarment. The exclusion from government contracting has been in effect since Sept. 30, 2015. NASA also has proposed debarment for Hydro Extrusion Portland, Inc.,formerly known as SPI,and the company currently is excluded from contracting throughout the federal government.
“Due in large part to the hard work and dedication of many highly motivated people in the NASA Launch Services program, we are able to close out the cause of two extremely disappointing launch vehicle failures and protect the government aerospace supply chain,” said Amanda Mitskevich, LSP program manager at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in, Florida. “It has taken a long time to get here, involving years of investigation and testing, but as of today, it has been worth every minute, and I am extremely pleased with the entire team’s efforts.”
To learn more about NASA’s Launch Services Program, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/launchingrockets/index.html -
#5 by AnalogMan on 01 May, 2019 11:01
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The more detailed public summary published by NASA yesterday can be found here:
NASA Investigative Summary: Taurus XL T8 and T9 Mission Failures
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/oco_glory_public_summary_update_-_for_the_web_-_04302019.pdf
(copy also attached)
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#6 by speedevil on 02 May, 2019 09:14
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Is this the highest $ loss due to material supply chain issues to NASA?
CRS-7 was a notably smaller number, including cargo.
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#7 by kdhilliard on 02 May, 2019 14:17
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The more detailed public summary published by NASA yesterday can be found here:
NASA Investigative Summary: Taurus XL T8 and T9 Mission Failures
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/oco_glory_public_summary_update_-_for_the_web_-_04302019.pdf
(copy also attached)
Naively, I would have assumed that a weaker than specified frangible joint rail would have fractured more easily, perhaps doing so prematurely. Is there a more detailed public report which explains the mechanism of how substandard material properties (lower than specified Minimum Yield Strength and Ultimate Tensile Strength) led to a frangible joint rail failing to fracture? -
#8 by novak on 02 May, 2019 15:32
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Naively, I would have assumed that a weaker than specified frangible joint rail would have fractured more easily, perhaps doing so prematurely. Is there a more detailed public report which explains the mechanism of how substandard material properties (lower than specified Minimum Yield Strength and Ultimate Tensile Strength) led to a frangible joint rail failing to fracture?
It's more complicated than that, basically, you're not just trying to get something to fail, you're trying to fracture it (get a crack to propagate through the whole thing) with a single sharp impact. For instance, even though rubber is much weaker than glass it's easy to fracture glass and hard to fracture rubber. They talk about loss of fracture margin, which indicates to me that whatever the material properties were, they made it harder to fracture.
For Aluminum 6061, as it age hardens, yield strength goes up and maximum elongation goes down (it becomes stronger but more brittle). So it makes sense intuitively that if yield strength is low that it is also likely more difficult to fracture.
I don't know anything about this joint design specifically except from the linked paper so perhaps someone else who does could go into more detail.
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#9 by Kabloona on 03 May, 2019 03:01
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The more detailed public summary published by NASA yesterday can be found here:
NASA Investigative Summary: Taurus XL T8 and T9 Mission Failures
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/oco_glory_public_summary_update_-_for_the_web_-_04302019.pdf
(copy also attached)
Naively, I would have assumed that a weaker than specified frangible joint rail would have fractured more easily, perhaps doing so prematurely. Is there a more detailed public report which explains the mechanism of how substandard material properties (lower than specified Minimum Yield Strength and Ultimate Tensile Strength) led to a frangible joint rail failing to fracture?
Novak is correct about the basic materials properties involved.
I worked briefly on Pegasus many years ago, and my memory is admittedly suspect, but the frangible joint they used was designed by an Orbital MechE named Gary Harris, and was informally called the Harris joint at Orbital. I'm fairly sure the Harris joint was carried over from Pegasus onto Taurus.
Hard to describe without a drawing, but imagine a cross-section like two tuning forks laid flat facing each other, with their "U" ends touching, formed as a single piece of metal with a notch where each "U" end joins the other. Now imagine a semi-flattened stainless steel cylinder (which is actually a long sealed tube in 3-D) inside the two U's. The tube contains pyrotechnics that cause the tube to expand, pushing out on the arms of the U's and causing the metal to fracture at the notches where the U ends join.
If the metal of the U arms is too soft, they'll just deform without fracturing as the expanding tube pushes them outward, and the the joint won't fully separate. That's basically what happened with the failed joints. The aluminim extrusions were just too soft to fracture completely.
I just found a link to Gary Harris' patent application for his frangible joint. Figure 2 shows the cross-section I described above.
https://data.epo.org/publication-server/rest/v1.0/publication-dates/19940511/patents/EP0596400NWA2/document.html -
#10 by woods170 on 03 May, 2019 06:11
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The more detailed public summary published by NASA yesterday can be found here:
NASA Investigative Summary: Taurus XL T8 and T9 Mission Failures
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/oco_glory_public_summary_update_-_for_the_web_-_04302019.pdf
(copy also attached)
Naively, I would have assumed that a weaker than specified frangible joint rail would have fractured more easily, perhaps doing so prematurely. Is there a more detailed public report which explains the mechanism of how substandard material properties (lower than specified Minimum Yield Strength and Ultimate Tensile Strength) led to a frangible joint rail failing to fracture?
Novak is correct about the basic materials properties involved.
I worked briefly on Pegasus many years ago, and my memory is admittedly suspect, but the frangible joint they used was designed by an Orbital MechE named Gary Harris, and was informally called the Harris joint at Orbital. I'm fairly sure the Harris joint was carried over from Pegasus onto Taurus.
Hard to describe without a drawing, but imagine a cross-section like two tuning forks laid flat facing each other, with their "U" ends touching, formed as a single piece of metal with a notch where each "U" end joins the other. Now imagine a semi-flattened stainless steel cylinder (which is actually a long sealed tube in 3-D) inside the two U's. The tube contains pyrotechnics that cause the tube to expand, pushing out on the arms of the U's and causing the metal to fracture at the notches where the U ends join.
If the metal of the U arms is too soft, they'll just deform without fracturing as the expanding tube pushes them outward, and the the joint won't fully separate. That's basically what happened with the failed joints. The aluminim extrusions were just too soft to fracture completely.
I just found a link to Gary Harris' patent application for his frangible joint. Figure 2 shows the cross-section I described above.
https://data.epo.org/publication-server/rest/v1.0/publication-dates/19940511/patents/EP0596400NWA2/document.html
Liked your post but replying anyway to let you know that this is a most informative post. Thanks! -
#11 by rayleighscatter on 05 May, 2019 22:41
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Is this the highest $ loss due to material supply chain issues to NASA?
CRS-7 was a notably smaller number, including cargo.
Depends how you define loss. Perkin-Elmer cost NASA more with the mis-ground Hubble mirror.
the link provided is for the BEPICOLOMBO TRAJECTORY OPTIONS TO MERCURY IN 2016 AND 2017, nothing to do with the topic. 