First private Chinese attempt to send rocket into space fails
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
This is a design problem. It should not be possible to install them in the wrong orientation. So many disastrous problems in aerospace result from crossed connections and things installed backwards that a lot of effort is put into making this impossible.
For example:
1. having asymmetric bolt patterns
2. having one of the bolts being a different size/thread
3. having a package shape that won't fit any way but the right way
4. have arrows on the package
5. color-coding the ends
6. etc.
At least the chip package manufacturers could have slightly offset the pins on one side. But noooo... :-(
> By July 13, investigators simulated the improper installation of the DUS angular velocity sensors on the actual hardware. As it turned out, it would be very difficult to do but not impossible. To achieve that personnel would need to use procedures and instruments not certified either by the design documentation or the installation instructions. As a result, the plate holding the sensors sustained damage. Yet, when the hardware recovered from the accident was delivered to GKNPTs Khrunichev, it was discovered that the nature of the damage to the plate had almost exactly matched the simulated version.
For aerospace hydraulic actuators, where installing the lines backwards will crash the airplane (and this has happened):
1. inlet and outlet have different size ports
2. one is a left hand thread, the other right hand
3. the lines are not long enough to reach the wrong port
4. they're color coded, with arrows
5. the acceptance test tests that the actuator goes the right direction. In fact, this is often part of the preflight checklist.
Just for fun, take a look at the connections on your car's battery. It's usually easy to hook them up backwards - the cables are not color-coded, they're long enough, they use the same connectors, the + and - is easily obscured by dirt, etc. Hooking them up backwards will set your car on fire. (google it!)
When I hook up cables, I always find the one that connects to the engine block, that way I know it is -, and scrape off the dirt to make sure I find the - post.
> By July 9, it is transpired that investigators sifting through the wreckage of the doomed rocket had found critical angular velocity sensors, DUS, installed upside down. Each of those sensors had an arrow that was suppose to point toward the top of the vehicle, however multiple sensors on the failed rocket were pointing downward instead.
Yes, the article confirms what I am talking about.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_(spacecraft)#Mishap_In...
Twenty minutes of a designer role-playing an assembly tech installing those components (with the mindset of trying to fail) might have gotten us a "this can only fit one way" result.
> On January 6, 2006, Ryschkewitsch revealed that a pre-test procedure on the craft was skipped by Lockheed Martin, and he noted that the test could have easily detected the problem.
> All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer.
> -- IBM maintenance manual, 1925
More seriously, there need to be strong cultural norms against hammering the components, and against making components which need to be hammered.
It seems more like another instance of "build an idiot-proof system and the world builds a better idiot."
Which brings up an oft mentioned statement: Operators usually don't do the wrong thing, they do the thing that's almost right.
Also if you want to lutz on the Soviets there was an Boeing airliner that crashed because the cables to the two engines alarm sensors were swapped at a bulkhead. On that flight one of the engines threw a serious alarm, and the swapped connectors caused the crew to shutdown the good engine. When the bad engine failed, the crew tried restarting the other engine but it was too late.
Is there ever a scenario where color-coding is the only safety feature?
Because people can be remarkably ignorant about color-blindness.
If you're color blind, you're going to have problems building electronic boards. In the Air Force, you can't be a pilot if you're color blind.
A friend of mine is totally color blind. He'd ask me to check his work when it mattered. He memorized the locations of all the flashing yellow traffic lights, and was fine until one day it was changed to a flashing red. Fortunately, his wife was with him and was able to alert him.
Not acceptable in a job, as per the ADA.
Including those claiming to speak for those with color-deficient vision. I’m “color-blind” in the colloquial sense, and I’ve done wiring for years without problem. The reason is, and I don’t know if this is by design, that there is rarely a single distinction between wires. IOW, not just blue but blue with a white stripe. There will not be a purple-with-white-stripe (easy to confuse with blue). There might be purple-with-black-stripe. There might be red-with-white-stripe, which most people with color-deficient vision can distinguish from blue.
The only time in recent memory that I’ve had to have the wife help was when a store-front shop sent me a harness with solid blue and solid violet, and the violet wasn’t “violet” enough to tell from blue.
And house wiring? If you can’t tell white from black from bare copper, you’ve got bigger issues.
Real color blindness, which is a tiny percentage of the population, might have a problem, though.
“flight control sensors were hammered into the rocket’s compartment upside down.”
From https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/01/russias-proton-rocke...
> However the technician's supervisor and a quality control specialist were supposed to check on the completion of the installation. All three people involved in this process did leave their signatures in the assembly log.
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/proton_glonass49.html
There are 3 failures here: the fasteners were still able to be fastened, the cables were long enough to fit on the wrong side, and the inspector who signed off on it didn't inspect it.
Yes, I'm being picky and pedantic, but that's necessary for flight critical hardware.
If you're assembling a process gas delivery system, you'll find that pressure bottles containing fuels (H2, CH4, etc.) have left-hand threads in the delivery valves. Oxidizer bottles (O2,, etc.) have right-hand threads. Associated hardware (regulators, flow limiters, etc.) is also threaded for their intended use.
Makes it much harder to accidentally connect an acetylene tank to a cryogenic oxygen delivery line, with resultant catastrophic exothermic disassembly.
For example,
a < b < c
Python: a < b && b < c
C: ((a < b) ? 1 : 0) < c
D: syntax error!
Instead of trying to better educate programmers and code design reviews to solve it, make it impossible for such to pass the compiler.
In the end, I think that when your schedule is highly stressful and time sensitive, people make stupid errors on easy stuff because they'll prioritize their time on the harder stuff - which they will probably get right !
According to the article this first attempt at launch in China had a State television communications satellite on board. Ouch!
Also, the company's name is Landspace.
[1] https://spacenews.com/landspace-ready-for-first-chinese-priv...
Definitely - it is all about the software team forgetting the accursed word "iteration"
There, the software must works right from first compile. The way of writing software "in hopes it works," and reworking it by going from one newly discovered roadblock to another doesn't work.
Also, formal verification is genuinely needed here, even more than say in embedded space.
Formal verification far exceeds testing as know to mainstream software development.
And in addition to it, some "sanity tests" are preferably to be done just to have an assurance that your are not verifying the wrong thing. I heard of few cases when formally verified software failed despite devs being religiously zealous with it.
One on my mind was of oxygen sensor wired to ADC, and ADC was able to measure negative voltage... Thus it was keeping the fuel injector running for the negative amount of time... You can imagine the following sequence of events.
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/alibaba-reaching...
This isn't (or at least should not be) China vs USA, these are two private companies competing. It does feel like there's a narrative to make it feel like the space race where you had two nation states competing, but it's really not like that at all. The American people should feel little extra connection to SpaceX than they do to Landscape, after all, the people of America will not benefit SpaceX successes in the same way they would if NASA were to succeed.
Personally I don't appreciate nationalism and I think there's a huge element to this in the way many of us think about the world, which is reflected in our reporting of events.
Of course, you are right. But nationalism is way ingrained.
US multinational PR may be all about globalization and inclusiveness, but employees will always chant “USA”.
On the flip side, here is how SCMP introduced SpaceX:
> Tuesday's successful launch into orbit of private company SpaceX's unmanned Dragon capsule may have marked 'a new era in space exploration'
A friend of mine was in a Chinese high school for a year. Every Monday morning the whole school had to line up by class in formation and watch the flag being raised with their fists raised in a sort of salute. Then they would have to recite this kind of pledge/chant thing before listening to the school's party secretary talk about communism for 15 minutes.
I really don't get what effect it tries to achieve, or how it could ever manage to do anything other than make kids bored/misbehave.
- They are only allowed to hire US citizens and permanent residents
- They are not allowed to export their technology
- They derive a substantial fraction of their income from US government contracts. Most of which can only be won by american companies.
- NASA shares substantial amounts of information with them.
- Also the reverse.
- (I'm pretty sure the list goes on)
China is relevant not just as a "go <country>" sense but it's about what technology this group has access to. The regulatory regime they are part of (how many people are they allowed to risk killing). The funding options they have. How this technology affects politics. Etc.