NYTimes. Not Having A Blast. Losses shake confidence in rocket industry
Published Wednesday, May 12, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News
New York Times
WASHINGTON -- America's space rockets suddenly seem to be
failing, blowing up or losing payloads at an alarming rate that has
experts questioning the prowess of an increasingly competitive satellite
launching industry.
In the last nine months, there have been six significant failures of U.S.
rockets trying to put civilian and military payloads into orbit. The
mishaps, involving both older, usually reliable rockets and newly
designed spacecraft, have resulted in losses totaling $3.5 billion and
shaken confidence in the ability of the United States to launch space
missions, including crucial communications and spy satellites.
Engineers studying the problem say they cannot tell if the recent
difficulties are just bad luck or signs of systemic problems in the
launching business. A number of explanations have been floated to
explain the string of disasters, ranging from an over-reliance on
computer models in place of flight testing to the pressures to do more
for less money.
''The performance we've demonstrated since last August is
unacceptable, to us and to our customers,'' said Peter B. Teets, the
president and chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin, whose
rockets are responsible for the loss of four satellites since August.
''The worst impact on morale is losing a mission,'' Teets said. ''We
have good people who are not feeling very well right now.''.
John F. Willacker of Aerospace Corp., a private consulting and
engineering research company based in El Segundo, said the nation's
space launching industry was suffering from being under the
competing pressures of flying more rockets at less cost while also
trying to introduce new boosters that are even more economical.
The satellite launching business is booming, with an unprecedented
number of customers in science, communications and other industries
clamoring to get their payloads into space. At the same time, there is
great pressure to reduce the cost of launchings, with American
companies being forced to compete with low-cost launching services
being offered by Europe's Ariane rockets and boosters available in
Russia and China.
''The industry is a little stretched, and this pressure is contributing to
some systematic problems,'' Willacker, head of the consulting
company's space launching operations, said in an interview. ''I have a
hard time believing there can be this much bad luck in a row without
there being some common threads,'' he said. ''We must find them and
straighten them out.''
Meanwhile, though, the troubles are causing apprehension for rocket
users as well as flight delays while engineers sort out the problems to
determine whether future missions are in danger. With some three
dozen military and civilian launchings scheduled from the United
States, this is a particularly busy year for the American launching
industry.
The Air Force has indefinitely postponed the flight of a giant Titan IV
rocket, which has failed three times in its last three launchings and
which was to carry a secret spy satellite into space early this month
from Vandenberg Air Force Base. This delay, in turn, prevents the
scheduled launching of an older rocket, the Titan II, from an adjacent
pad. The Titan II is supposed to orbit a NASA science spacecraft
called Quikscat.
And NASA has pushed back the scheduled July 22 flight of the space
shuttle Columbia, which is to carry the $1.5 billion Chandra X-ray
Observatory into space. An attached booster rocket that is to drive
the observatory into its final orbit is the same type as one that
malfunctioned last month.
The space agency is going ahead with plans for a July launching of
Terra, a billion-dollar satellite that is the flagship of NASA's Earth
Observing System to monitor global changes, even though the upper
stage of its carrier rocket, a Centaur, is identical to one that misfired
last month and doomed a military communications satellite.
The Air Force announced on May 6 that it and the National
Reconnaissance Office, which deploys spy satellites, would conduct a
broad review of military launching capability and the Titan failures.
Lockheed Martin, which makes the Titans, as well as the Centaur
upper stage and the Athena rocket, also announced it was appointing
an independent panel of experts to examine the procedures of its
rocket business.
Willacker of the Aerospace Corp. said the rocket business suffered
from too few experienced engineers and technicians, particularly those
at mid-career, who are being stretched across too many projects.
Another problem, Willacker said, is an overreliance on computer
simulation and modeling in creating new products and a reduction in
testing actual hardware.
©1999 Mercury Center.
Published Wednesday, May 12, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News
THE DIRTY HALF-DOZEN
The string of six rocket mishaps:
Aug. 12: A Titan IV exploded 41 seconds after liftoff, destroying an
$800 million communications intelligence satellite along with the $340
million rocket.
Aug. 26: Boeing's new Delta III rocket exploded 71 seconds after
liftoff on its maiden voyage, destroying a Galaxy 10 communications
satellite in a $225 million disaster.
April 9: Parts of an upper stage of a Titan IV failed to separate
properly, putting a missile warning satellite in a useless orbit, at a cost
of about $1 billion.
April 27: The Athena II, a small rocket made by Lockheed Martin
Corp., failed to place a private Earth-imaging satellite into orbit, and
the satellite was dragged back into the atmosphere, where it burned
up.
April 30: An upper stage on a Titan IV malfunctioned and put a
military communications satellite in an orbit too low, where it is
doubtful it can ever be used, at a cost of about $1 billion.
May 4: A Boeing Delta III rocket misfired in space, putting a $145
million Orion communications satellite into a lopsided orbit too low to
be useful.
Source: New York Times
©1999 Mercury Center. |
