(Another ?) NYT article about launch difficulties.
(I think this is a longer version of the one already posted).
May 12, 1999
Series of Rocket Failures Unnerves U.S. Space
Launching Industry
By WARREN E. LEARY
WASHINGTON -- Suddenly, America's space rockets 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, Calif., 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 in California. 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. But a spokesman said NASA was monitoring the
military investigation to see if it uncovered concerns that might affect the
launching of the Terra.
The current string of mishaps began last Aug. 12 when a Titan IV, the most
powerful rocket used by the military, exploded 41 seconds after liftoff,
destroying an $800 million communications intelligence satellite along with
the $340 million rocket. An Air Force review board blamed damaged
electrical wires that were not detected before the flight.
The two other Titan IV setbacks, at a cost of about $1 billion each, occurred
in April, apparently for dissimilar reasons. On April 9, an upper stage
deployed from the Titan as expected, but apparently parts of it failed to
separate properly between multiple firings, putting a missile warning satellite
in a useless orbit. This booster, made by the Boeing Co. and called the Inertial
Upper Stage, is the same type that is to propel NASA's Chandra observatory.
And on April 30, a different upper stage, the Centaur, malfunctioned and put
a military communications satellite in an orbit thousands of miles too low,
where it is doubtful it can ever be used.
The trade journal Aviation Week and Space Technology reported in its May
10 issue that the Centaur went awry nine minutes into the mission because of
inaccuracies in computer flight software from the rocket's maker, the
Lockheed Martin Corp. The errant software was loaded before the flight, and
problems went undetected by the company's normal verification process, the
report said.
Botched launchings also affected civilian space missions:
On Aug. 26, Boeing's new Delta III rocket exploded 71 seconds after liftoff
on its maiden voyage, destroying the Galaxy 10 communications satellite in a
$225 million disaster caused by a design error in its first-stage guidance
system.
On April 27, the Athena II, a relatively new small rocket made by Lockheed
Martin Corp., failed to place a private earth-imaging satellite into orbit after
launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. A 1,300-pound
protective payload shroud failed to separate from the $25 million rocket,
dragging the satellite back down into the atmosphere, where it burned up.
On May 4, the second-stage of another Boeing Delta III rocket did not fire
long enough after restarting in space, putting a $145 million Orion
communications satellite into a lopsided orbit thousands of miles too low to
be useful. Controllers are looking into ways to salvage some of the $230
million mission by using some of the satellite's internal fuel to nudge it higher.
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.
Gen. Richard B. Myers of the Air Force, who is commander of the U.S.
Space Command, said the loss of three new military satellites since August
because of launching failures did not jeopardize current military operations
but could affect future readiness if problems are not corrected.
"Because these failures have cost us a great deal in financial terms and in
future mission capability, we are working hard to identify their causes,"
Myers said in a statement.
Teets of Lockheed Martin said: "My gut feeling is that we're having a very
unlucky period right now and that our basic operations are sound. But we
want this outside committee to see if there is something going on here,
something fundamental, that we can't see on a case-to-case basis."
Gale Schluter, executive vice president of Boeing's rocket systems division,
said troubles with the new Delta III appeared to be birthing problems of a
largely new design and not a breakdown in normal operations at the
company. He noted that Boeing's smaller, older Delta II had accumulated a
97.5 percent success rate over 10 years, showing that the company knew
how to produce quality rockets. "We are looking at the Delta III
comprehensively," he said, "We want to understand the two failures better
and deal with them."
Willacker of the Aerospace Corporation said the rocket business suffered
from too few experienced engineers and technicians, particularly those at
midcareer, who are being stretched across too many projects.
A dearth in hiring in the industry in the early 1980s has resulted in a cadre of
well-educated new engineers in their 20s and early 30s and a seasoned group
over age 55 who are approaching retirement, Willacker said, but few in the
gap between these clusters.
Another problem, Willacker said, is an overreliance on computer simulation
and modeling in creating new products and a reduction in testing actual
hardware.
"Historically, you would build test aircraft or rockets and fly them before you
commit to production," Willacker said. "We seem to have convinced
ourselves that we don't need that luxury today, and it shows."
Schluter, of Boeing, said his company does a lot of testing at the component
and subsystem level and is highly confident in its results, but he
acknowledged that this analytical approach "gets risky" when used for a
complete vehicle. This has led to discussion over firing "test rounds" of new
rockets without paying cargo, which is expensive for the manufacturer, he
said.
Willacker of the Aerospace Co. said his group kept a database on all
spaceflights and found that there had been about 60 significant launch failures
since 1990.
"When looking for common factors, we were somewhat surprised," he said.
"We worry a lot about electronics and computers, but the most prominent
factors were hardware -- propulsion and ordinance systems." This means
rocket engines and fuel systems with their varied manufactured parts, he
said, and explosive bolts, springs and other mechanisms for separating rocket
stages.
"These are the kinds of things we should know how to make and operate
well," he said. "It's manufacturing and quality control. Not a lot of this is real
rocket science."
Several space historians said the recent run of ill fortune reminded them of a
period in the mid-1980s when everything seemed to go wrong. The
calamities included the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, resulting in
the loss of its seven-member crew; the back-to-back failures of two Titan
rockets and the destruction of a pair of military reconnaissance satellites; and
an Atlas rocket being struck by lightning in flight, destroying a Navy satellite.
"Space launch vehicles are inherently unreliable and people should understand
that this is still risky business," said John E. Pike, an expert on civilian and
military space programs with the Federation of American Scientists. "I'm
prepared to believe we have had an extraordinary run of bad luck," he said,
"but when you have something like the Titan IV failures, where there have
been three in a row, you wonder if it's more than bad luck."
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company |
