A new report from the U.S. Justice Department reveals that a company by the name of Sapa Profiles (now Hydro Extrusion Portland) falsified tests to make their products appear to be, well, not total garbage. But they were total garbage, and the faulty metal is now being blamed for a pair of high-profile failures that cost NASA hundreds of millions of dollars.
As NASA explains in its own account of the matter, both the Glory mission (2011) and Orbiting Carbon Observatory mission (2009) ended when the nosecones of the Taurus XL rockets carrying the pricey hardware failed. Those components were built out of aluminum from Sapa Profiles, which forged test documents to make it appear as though the material met the standards of NASA (and several other clients).
But the balsa wood identified as a metal, and had a judge that insists it must be called a metal and could not be tested in a way that would show it’s not a metal, how could it possibly have failed?
This wasn’t a failure, it was a blow for freedom from oppression of “Orange Man Bad Science” that so dominates the physical world.
Only when we throw off the shackles of reality shall we really be free to self-identify and dream as we like.
In my truth, these weren’t rockets. They were flying unicorns and they are actually currently on the moon.
Sounds like a job for SNC-Lavalin. They know how to cut that red tape, eh.
Not like the old days:
https://www.businessinsider.com/voyager-kitchen-aluminum-wrap-radiation-short-circuit-2017-9
“We didn’t have time to go through the normal design reviews, so in order to get this protection done quickly enough, an ad hoc team was formed and we did some things that were out of the ordinary,” Locatell said. “Very out of the ordinary.”
He eventually sent a technician to a local supermarket in Florida to buy up all the kitchen-grade aluminum foil available.
“It was one of the only materials that was available to us,” he said.
The team unfurled the foil, cut it into continuous strips, cleaned it with alcohol and wipes, and wrapped every exterior cable on the two spacecraft.”
It wasn’t just NASA that had a loss with those two launch failures. The booster manufacturer, Orbital Sciences (as I think it was known back then–it didn’t become Orbital ATK until a few years later) got into financial trouble because of it. The latter failure essentially grounded the Taurus XL (now called Minotaur-C) for several years.
That cut into Orbital’s revenue, which is one reason it’s now part of Northrup Grumman. Of course, the explosion of another model of the Taurus booster (now called Antares) shortly after liftoff at Wallops Island a few years ago didn’t help.
What specifications did the aluminum fail? Was this really a materials failure, or just a bureaucratic NASA excuse for bad designs?
Portlandia.
So, was it plain old Chinese, or extra good Canadian-Chinese aluminium?
And people wonder why the tariffs are still in place, and why the world won’t just see the inherent greatness of the god-prime minister Trudeau…
Put the blame on the correct people. The parent company, Hydro, is Norwegian.
https://www.hydro.com/en/about-hydro/corporate-governance/organization/organizational-charts/
Not that the Chicom doesn’t have enough inferior products of its own.
The chart doesn’t indicate where the parts were manufactured. Could be China.
aluminium …I’ll wait for the expert information from our resident truck driver, the most knowledgeable metallurgist around!!!
Alla S were are ewe!!!!
The question is how did this firm get the contract? I remember McDonell Douglas had some failures in I think engine mount hardware and it it turned out they had farmed out the fabrication and heat treating of those pieces to a little local business that was in no way qualified to do the work. Must’ve been small business outreach or some other government mandated graft that was the criterion rather than: let’s get it done right by the best we can find.
A lot of replacement parts for aircraft come from China. Truly scary.
And which Deep state leftist bureaucrat in NASA was told (in no uncertain terms) that Sapa Profiles was a highly-regarded $ high-stakes Obama donor?
You DO understand how government contracts are let out? See: Solyndra
This is a pretty blatant attempt at transphobia. The aluminum in question self-identified as acceptable, up to standard, whatever the heteronormative term is. Everyone agreed that the paper work was fine, didn’t they? This is just a stealth attempt to attack trans rights, er, lefts. Giving into this heteronormative, white man’s rules, criticism of this diversity will just lead to the return of slavery and the extinction of all life on the planet. Anyone who disagrees is a fascist.
So who did Sapa bribe to look the other way and does that person still work for the US government in any capacity?
My guess is that they were exposed when whoever was covering for them retired or took a job elsewhere.
A detailed analysis would surely follow 700 million dollars in losses, especially with the same failure of two launches. The failure of the fairing to separate leads to only a few possible causes, including the frangible extrusion joining the two fairing halves together. Material to other customers from the same batch could be identified and tested, with results compared to the originally reported test results.
At that point, people in the know will sing like a bird once investigators start poking around.