Blocked Fuel Line Botched Military Satellite Orbit 86
Hugh Pickens writes "Dan Elliott reports that a piece of cloth inadvertently left in the fuel line during the manufacturing process may be the reason for the botched delivery to orbit of a military communications satellite that hasn't reached its planned orbit since it was launched in August. The Air Force Space Command and the contractor, Lockheed Martin, have devised a work-around plan using the remaining propulsion systems — reaction engine assemblies and electric Hall Current Thrusters drawing off of onboard fuel—to slowly raise the perigee of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite until it reaches its intended orbit 22,300 miles over the Earth in October, but the GAO says that the $12.9 billion satellite system incurred at least $250 million in extra costs and a two-year delay because of quality problems due to poor workmanship, undocumented and untested manufacturing processes, poor control of those processes and materials and failure to prevent contamination, poor part design, design complexity, and an inattention to manufacturing risks. John Pike of Globalsecurity.org, which monitors defense issues, says the two-year delay is a bigger problem than the extra expense. 'You've got a lot of other things depending on the launch,' says Pike, including ground-based weapons."
Air force and nasa (Score:2, Insightful)
And people whine about NASA being ineffective and costly for putting two landers on a distant planet for the "enormous price" of half a billion of dollars.
Re:2%? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's the $12.9B we gave the Pentagon/CIA for a piece of junk that doesn't work due to contractor incompetence that's stirring up shit, and rightly so.
Don Rumsfeld, is that you?
What penalties? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Air Force Space Command and the contractor, Lockheed Martin...
And what penalties is Lockheed Martin going to pay for the shoddy workmanship and untested processes? Will they have to reimburse the government for the expense? Lose their ability to bid on government contracts?
When there's no accountability, there's no incentive to fix anything.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with that "answer" is that the contract has to completely cover *every possible loophole* or you get reamed. Quality depends more on the people you hire than the processes you follow anyways (though I'm not saying that good processes can't help a lot).
Re:vs. The James Webb (Score:1, Insightful)
The telescope is unlikely to be used to spy on you or to infringe on your rights. In that regard it is un-useful to the national security state. They need spy gear and to funnel your tax money to rich fat cats. Everything else is secondary.
Re:2%? (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole reason we overspend on contractors is so mistakes don't occur. When they do there's rarely a good excuse, so it's no longer a mistake- it's generally due to negligence or corruption. That doesn't fall under the category of "shit happens."