How to tip a satellite -- NOT!!

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

As the NOAA-N Prime spacecraft was being repositioned from vertical to horizontal on the "turn over cart" at approximately 7:15 PDT today, it slipped off the fixture, causing severe damage. (See attached photo). The 18' long spacecraft was about 3' off the ground when it fell.

The mishap was caused because 24 bolts were missing from a fixture in the "turn over cart".

It's worth $240 million.

opps

They forgot to bolt it down????? Nice job Lockheed! Quality control at it's best. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jpshakehead.gif

Nice...a small $240 Million omission... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ohgeez.gif

Makes me feel less bad about those BadBoys and Luxeons ive fried by accident.

Oooo, Geeze! Those things are one offs built lovingly by hand and it takes years to put one together. The crew has to be in pretty sad shape right now.

Glad there was no body underneath it when it toppled, they are built as lightly as possible so that you can lift them into space, but something that size will still squish you!

I wonder if the Anomaly Investigation Team that they have appointed will be able to figure out who's job it was to bolt the thing down. More telling though is the second thing mentioned in the report, that they failed to do the checklist since they had just used the thing a couple of days ago. Cutting some corners has cost them plenty...

Those guys who worked on that thing, and I'm not even speaking about the guy(s) who should have bolted and checklisted, must feel physically sick at the damage, James. Your saying that they are lovingly built by hand is if anything an understatement.

There is so much of those guys in each and every one of those machines that I would not be at all surprised to have one or more quietly slip off the deep end after something like that.

Sad.

"The mishap was caused because 24 bolts were missing from a fixture in the "turn over cart".


Let's see $240,000,000.00 divided by 24 bolts equals $10,000,000.00 per bolt! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/whoopin.gif

Yikes... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/faint.gif

then again, I'm glad those bolts weren't missing
from a critical component on the next space shuttle.

David <><

[ QUOTE ]
...then again, I'm glad those bolts weren't missing
from a critical component on the next space shuttle.

[/ QUOTE ]

You never know /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ohgeez.gif There are roughly two million parts that can break/fail/whatever (needed only for the shuttle itself). From that point of view it's pretty astonishing that this thing has worked as 'well' so far...

Chris

Maybe one of the "greys" from the X-Files knocked that satellite over, instead of having $10,000,000 bolts to blame it on, and the guy that was supposed to screw them in. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

The story I read in Aviation Week said that it had in fact been bolted down, but the bolts were later removed for some reason, and that fact was not properly logged.

It would probably cost more to repair and test that bird than it would cost to build a new one, so I'm pretty sure it will be scrapped. Ooops.

That's gonna leave a mark.

mike

someones heads gonna roll!

[erkle]did i do that?[/erkle]
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

Houston....we have a problem!!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

Oops!

New listing on EBay:

FOR SALE
One partially-constructed weather satellite.
Only one owner.
Needs work.
Hold-down bolts extra.

[ QUOTE ]
BobVA said:
It would probably cost more to repair and test that bird than it would cost to build a new one, so I'm pretty sure it will be scrapped. Ooops.


[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe if someone asks nicely it can be Fedexed to them. I'm sure there are some parts that could make some really cool mods on the satellite (fuel cell flashlight, anyone?). /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

-Mike

If it's trashed, I'd expect that it'd be stripped for parts.
Even if the main frame and larger components are trashed, a lot of the subcomponents should be good. There's an awful lot of vibration on takeoff, so SOME of it should survive.