NEWS: Under-construction satellite topples to floor in mishap

Under-construction satellite topples to floor in mishap

Tuesday September 09, 2003

By MATTHEW FORDAHL
AP Technology Writer

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) A nearly completed, $239 million weather
satellite toppled to the floor as it was being moved at a Lockheed
Martin plant and was seriously damaged, officials said Tuesday.

The NOAA-N Prime was being moved from a vertical to a horizontal
position when it fell 3 feet Saturday at the Sunnyvale facility.

The satellite was intended to go into polar orbit in 2008 and monitor
the climate for up to four years. In addition to weather, vegetation
and drought studies, it was to be used for receiving distress signals
from mariners and hikers.

Officials said it was too early to determine how its schedule might be
affected or whether any of its tasks will have to be changed.

According to a source close to the program, bolts that were supposed
to secure the satellite to the ``turn over cart'' had been removed a
day earlier by a crew working on another satellite project. The crew
working on NOAA-N Prime did not notice the bolts were missing when
they tried to flip the satellite, the source said, speaking on
condition of anonymity.

Lockheed Martin spokesman Buddy Nelson said it appears that the cart
``was not in the proper configuration for the planned activity.''

``We're reviewing the paperwork and examining the hardware to
determine the facts,'' he said.

No one had had access to the spacecraft since the mishap. Crews must
wait for its batteries to drain and propellant tanks to depressurize
before approaching the 18-foot satellite.

``It will probably be a couple to three weeks,'' said Gary Davis,
director of the office of systems development for the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration.

The construction and launch are being overseen by NASA Goddard
Spaceflight Center. After launch and testing, the satellite was to be
turned over to NOAA.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. has been building weather satellites
since the first one went up in the early 1960s.

http://cbsnewyork.com/national/Satel...rces_news_html

In article ,
(Rusty B) wrote:


SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) A nearly completed, $239 million weather
satellite toppled to the floor as it was being moved at a Lockheed
Martin plant and was seriously damaged, officials said Tuesday.

Check out the picture!

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=10299

-Ben

Anyone one want to guess how many carers will be damaged by this? My
personal guess is that the impending internal investigation will pin the
blame on willy the janitor.

It GOES boom! DOH! I've fallen, and I can't go up!

On 11 Sep 2003 02:31:26 GMT, (MSu1049321) wrote:

It GOES boom! DOH! I've fallen, and I can't go up!

It wasn't one of the GOES satellites.

Question, why was this "nearly complete" satellite not to be launched
until 2008?

Brian

gmw a écrit dans le message :
...
Anyone one want to guess how many carers will be damaged by this? My
personal guess is that the impending internal investigation will pin the
blame on willy the janitor.



Somehow, I doubt management will take the fall ;-)

Brian Thorn wrote in message . ..
Question, why was this "nearly complete" satellite not to be launched
until 2008?

Probably because NOAA-N' is the last of a relatively long-lived series
of satellites, and it ended up cheaper to build all the flight
vehicles in series and then store the later ones than stretch out
production. Then the existing satellites started lasting longer than
planned, and all of a sudden the last one sits on the ground for five
years after it's done.

Which comes in handy when someone *drops* it.

And then to the joy of LockMart Public Relations, said drop gets
broadcast around the world, along with a picture (!), making their
spin efforts that much harder. "It fell three feet to the floor" my
ass - the part that hit fell 20 feet to the floor, and the satellite
is visibly *bent*.

On the other hand, I am looking for work, and I bet Lockheed is hiring
some satellite assembly technicians.

-jake

Fark, as usual, has had a go at this news... see
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comm...?IDLink=645298 for the "fun".

My favorite comment, from rtreynor, was:

I think they should just launch the thing as-is and see what it learns
in its damaged state:

Today's weather outlook:
It will be raining fire throughout the midwest, with a slight chance
of frogs.
Thursday:
Overcast squirrels throughout the Northeast, with a chance for
golf-ball sized suns.

:-)

--
Reed

Ralph Nesbitt wrote:
[snip]
Usually NASA has a detailed written "Job Scenario" detailing each step of
what/when/where/how a given operation is to be accomplished. Odds are
checking for the "Bolts" that were missing is/was not part of the detailed
"Job Scenario" for the "Incident Operation". Wonder where the
"Quality/Inspector Types" were, to say nothing of "Safety Oversight"?
Ralph Nesbitt


I'm fairly certain there was a procedure with a MIP step to verify the
pins were
in place. The QA stamp probably occurred the day before the accident.
Somewhere in the night, the pins were removed (lack of communications
between the 2 separate ops requiring pins). Safety was probably
required to sign off on the procedure but didn't have to be present.

The problem was
1) PINS were removed by another crew (w/o procedure, apparently)
2) The original crew did not reverify their setup when
they arrived in the morning.

The fix will be
1) Safety standdown
2) Training on effective communications
3) Training on following procedures and reverifying lineups
4) Reprimand, possibly firing, of a few individuals, including the
unwitting QA individual
5) Facility wide review of all load lifting operations
6) Review of Lessons learned following investigation

Did I miss anything?

-stmx3

Ralph Nesbitt wrote:
Usually NASA has a detailed written "Job Scenario" detailing each step of
what/when/where/how a given operation is to be accomplished. Odds are
checking for the "Bolts" that were missing is/was not part of the detailed
"Job Scenario" for the "Incident Operation". Wonder where the
"Quality/Inspector Types" were, to say nothing of "Safety Oversight"?

Am I the only person wondering why a satellite construction shop doesn't
have a set of drawers with plenty of bolts of all sizes? It's not like
these bolts are going to fly - they just need to hold the damn satellite
down while it's turned over.

24 bolts - and they couldn't find them, so they pulled them off someone
elses' stand. WTF? nine figure satellites and they are short of fricking
bolts?

Sheesh!
.......Andrew


--
--
Andrew Case |
|