Aerospace industry faces worst crisis in a decade
Posted at 5:43 p.m. PDT Sunday, May 9, 1999
Orlando Sentinel
CAPE CANAVERAL -- The grim numbers say it all:
Nine months. Six U.S. rocket failures. $3.5 billion lost.
Three satellites marooned in useless orbits. Two blown to bits. One
incinerated as it fell back to Earth after failing to reach orbit.
It's the worst crisis for the American aerospace industry in more than
a decade.
To find a similarly troubled stretch, you have to go back to the
mid-1980s. Then, six rockets also failed during a nine-month period.
Shuttle Challenger and its crew of seven were among the casualties.
U.S. launch business ground to a halt.
Now, the same question -- why? -- is being asked again.
Congressional hearings are being considered. Investigation boards are
forming.
Already, a few possible answers are starting to emerge.
The military is examining quality control at a division of aerospace
giant Lockheed Martin. Several new, relatively unproven, rockets
recently have begun flying. Government oversight of defense and
space contractors has been scaled back to cut costs. And there are
more launches than ever; the law of averages could be catching up to
an inherently risky enterprise.
Whatever the reason, the stakes are huge. If solutions aren't found
soon, America risks losing more of the space-launch industry it once
dominated, a business estimated to be worth $86 billion during the
next decade.
The U.S. launch slowdown in the mid-1980s helped open the market
to foreign companies. American industry can't afford similar paralysis
today.
''One thing everybody uses to market their vehicle is reliability,'' said
Ed O'Connor, a former Air Force colonel who heads Spaceport
Florida Authority. ''Foreign competitors will certainly use this as a
reason not to fly American rockets.''
Since the Challenger accident, the Pentagon has relied on American
rockets such as the Titan IV to put military satellites into orbit.
Lockheed Martin has four contracts with the Air Force totaling $15.8
billion to build 41 Titans through 2003.
The success of that program is critical. There are few American
alternatives for putting massive military payloads into orbit.
The space shuttle hasn't flown a Defense Department mission since
November 1990. And foreign launchers aren't an option, especially
with growing concern in Congress about the transfer of space
technology to other countries.
But the disasters are adding up. The three most expensive recent
failures all were Air Force Titan missions, costing taxpayers almost $3
billion. That's more than double the estimated damage from last
week's tornadoes that destroyed thousands of homes in Oklahoma
and Kansas.
The 20-story Titan IV has become the focus of three Air Force
investigations, including an overall program review ordered Thursday
by acting Air Force Secretary Whitten Peters. After failing only once
in its first 24 flights, the last three Titan IV launches all have been
botched.
On Aug. 12, an electrical short caused a Titan IV-A to explode 41
seconds after liftoff, destroying a $700 million spy satellite and the
$344 million rocket. On April 9, a $250 million missile-warning
satellite was left in the wrong orbit when a $432 million Titan IV-B's
upper stage failed to separate.
On April 30, the $800 million Milstar military communications satellite
was stranded in a useless orbit after a $433 million Titan IV-B's
Centaur upper stage misfired. It was the costliest unmanned launch
accident in Cape Canaveral history.
Citing unnamed sources, the May 10 issue of Aviation Week and
Space Technology reports the Milstar failure was caused by a
software mistake loaded into the rocket. The mistake went
undetected during a software verification process at Lockheed Martin
Astronautics in Littleton, Colo., the magazine said.
An earlier Air Force investigation determined the Aug. 12 explosion
was triggered by a damaged electrical wire harness that also went
unnoticed during preflight inspections at the same Lockheed Martin
facility. Investigators found evidence of dozens of other wiring defects
in manufacturing records covering the past decade. Some defects
weren't discovered until after the rockets were shipped to the Cape
or Vandenberg Air Force Base in California for launch.
''The question for Lockheed Martin is whether they have some sort
of management problem that's letting flawed hardware get to the
launch pad,'' said John Pike, director of space policy for the
Federation of American Scientists. ''It's a question that Wall Street
and the Air Force want answered.''
To help find answers, Lockheed Martin is forming a panel of 10 to 12
outside experts that will review the company's operations and report
back by Sept. 1. A management shakeup reportedly is in the works.
Company officials are forbidden from commenting on the ongoing Air
Force investigations. However, Lockheed Martin president Peter
Teets released a statement last week which said, in part:
''Recent launch vehicle missions have not met their objectives. This is
unacceptable in a company that takes the concept of performance
and quality as seriously as Lockheed Martin does.''
Despite mounting concerns about quality control, the federal
government has continued to relax oversight, leaving the industry
increasingly alone to police itself. And some companies are trying to
do more with less in an effort to hold down launch costs. Lockheed
Martin recently announced 900 jobs will be cut at that same Littleton
astronautics division, the prime contractor for the Titan program.
Titan's woes have overshadowed the recent failure of Lockheed
Martin's newest rocket, the Athena II. During an April 27 launch from
Vandenberg, the $25 million rocket's protective nose cone failed to
detach several minutes after launch as planned.
The extra weight apparently dragged down the rocket's upper stage
and kept its cargo, the Ikonos I Earth-imaging satellite, from reaching
orbit. The satellite -- estimated to be worth about $150 million --
likely burned up re-entering the atmosphere. It was the fifth flight and
the second failure for the Athena family, created as a smaller
commercial complement to the company's more powerful Atlas line of
rockets.
The two most expensive commercial accidents in recent months also
flew aboard a new rocket, Boeing's Delta III. The vehicle was built to
launch double the weight of the smaller Delta II, one of the world's
most reliable rockets.
Boeing officials designed Delta III to compete for business with larger
Atlas and Ariane launchers and serve as a stepping stone to an even
bigger Delta IV vehicle. But Delta III's first two launches were
disappointments.
The Aug. 26 maiden flight exploded 70 seconds after liftoff because
of a guidance problem. The $85 million rocket and its $140 million
cargo, a Galaxy television satellite, were destroyed.
After a seven-month, $45 million investigation, Delta III's second
flight lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Station on Tuesday night.
This time, the guidance system appeared to work fine. But about 20
minutes after launch, an upper stage malfunctioned, stranding a $145
million Asian communications satellite in a useless orbit.
Instead of reigniting for a planned 21/2 minutes, the upper-stage
engine burned only a split second before shutting down. It's unlikely
the satellite has enough propellant to reach its intended orbit.
Launch failures for new vehicles are common, almost expected.
However, satellite manufacturers are increasingly willing to take a
chance because of long waits for getting a ride into orbit. And most
commercial launches are insured, although coverage costs seem
certain to go up.
Jay Witzling, vice president of Boeing's Delta III program, said the
company never seriously considered a test flight without a paying
customer, even after the first failure. With contracts already in hand to
launch 18 more satellites and data now available from two
unsuccessful missions, Boeing doesn't plan on a test flight for Delta
III's third try either.
Other companies have taken a different approach. One of Boeing's
competitors, the European consortium Arianespace, launched dead
weight on its second mission after the first flight exploded.
''You can say Delta III just ran their two qualification tests, only these
were declared commercial flights,'' said Jean-Michel Desobeau,
director of engineering at Arianespace's Washington office. ''We
believe it's not a good idea.''
The six recent failures appear to have few common threads, although
Tuesday's Delta III problem was caused by a second stage similar to
the Centaur upper stage that malfunctioned on the April 30 Titan
mission. Boeing officials studied the Titan problem before clearing
Delta III for launch. The glitches appear to be unrelated.
Nevertheless, fallout from recent launch woes have shaken up plans at
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
NASA's scheduled May 15 launch of a weather satellite for the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been put on
hold for at least a week. Mission managers want more time to
examine the Atlas rocket and its Centaur upper stage.
A shuttle flight also has been delayed. Columbia's July 9 mission to
deploy the $1.5 billion Chandra X-ray telescope is postponed until at
least July 22 so technicians can check out the Boeing-built upper
stage that will carry Chandra away from the shuttle and into its
intended orbit.
The same type of upper stage failed to separate during the April 9
Titan launch. If the component has to be shipped back to the Boeing
manufacturing plant in Washington state, days of delays could turn
into months. And each additional month costs NASA $8 million.
The May 20 launch of Discovery on a supply mission to the
international space station remains unaffected. Dave King, director of
shuttle processing at Kennedy Space Center, said recent expendable
launch problems have little impact on the shuttle world.
''The bottom line is I think we have a lot more government
involvement (at KSC) watching over the contractors and the
processing,'' King said. ''We feel pretty comfortable we're doing
everything we can do.''
X X X
RECENT FAILED LAUNCH VEHICLES
Rocket: Athena II
Manufacturer: Lockheed Martin
Launches: 2
Failures: 1 (April 27, 1999)
Cost of rocket: $25 million each
Cost of satellite losses: About $150 million
First flight: Jan. 7, 1998
Height: 100 feet
Weight: 265,000 pounds
Payload capacity to low-Earth orbit: 4,350 pounds
Primary use: commercial
Rocket: Titan IV
Manufacturer: Lockheed Martin
Launches: 27
Failures: 4 (3 since Aug. 12, 1998)
Cost of rocket: About $430 million each
Cost of recent satellite losses: About $1.75 billion
First flight: June 14, 1989
Height: 204 feet
Weight: 1.9 million pounds
Payload capacity to low-Earth orbit: 47,800 pounds
Primary use: military
Rocket: Delta III
Manufacturer: Boeing
Launches: 2
Failures: 2 (Aug. 26, 1998 and May 4, 1999)
Cost of rocket: About $85 million each
Cost of recent satellite losses: About $285 million
First flight: Aug. 26, 1998
Height: 128 feet
Weight: 663,200 pounds
Payload capacity to low-Earth orbit: 18,280 pounds
Primary use: commercial
©1999 Mercury Center. |
