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Comment by laurencei | Hacker News Reader

"They might not have "known", but come on, you're selling radiation-hardened chips to NASA. "

But do people ever actually "invoice NASA" for components. It was probably one of 100 different sub contractors building the actual circuits to NASA specifications, i.e. it was lower in the chain rather than NASA itself.

(Doesnt excuse the non-disclosure to those subcontractors)

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>But do people ever actually "invoice NASA" for components

Yes, absolutely they do. I'm not a part of this mission, but I'm currently working on another NASA spacecraft mission. I don't know the percentages off hand, but a substantial portion of our spacecraft is built in house with parts purchased directly by NASA from the manufacturer.

Regardless, there are lines of communication to subcontractors. The mere fact that they found out about this at a conference is significant evidence that Infineon didn't notify who they should have.

Off-topic, but when components are sourced directly from the manufacturer do you have to buy in bulk? I figured you didn't just go on Mouser or DigiKey, but I would think manufacturers don't like dealing in small amounts.

For spacecraft parts, they absolutely don't mind (they're charging for the privilege of course). For the parts I'm familiar with, we generally buy both the necessary flight-rated components (both enough to build the vehicle and some number of spares) and a number of unrated components used in various test apparatuses in a single order. Once you get down to the level of stuff that's not even a flight-test fixture, we can indeed source parts from pretty much wherever. The biggest issue then become US government procurement rules that require us to buy American, but I'm pretty sure I've seen at least Mouser get used before.

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