Nasa has discovered the ‘technical root cause’ of two dramatic mission failures.
In 2009, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) plunged into the ocean near Antarctica after failing to separate from a Taurus XL rocket.
Two years later in 2011, the Glory satellite crashed into the southern Pacific Ocean after being launched aboard the same model of spacecraft.
Now Nasa has said the ‘mishaps’ were caused by ‘faulty parts’ supplied by aluminium manufacturer Sapa Profiles, which agreed to pay $46million to the space agency and other customers to resolve criminal charges bought by the Department of Justice.
No-one was killed in the two accidents, which were blamed on a failure in a ‘ payload fairing rail frangible joint’ which allows spacecraft to separate from the rockets carrying them.
Jim Norman, Nasa director for launch services at its headquarters in Washington, said: ‘Nasa relies on the integrity of our industry throughout the supply chain.
‘While we do perform our own testing, NASA is not able to retest every single component. That is why we require and pay for certain components to be tested and certified by the supplier.
‘When testing results are altered and certifications are provided falsely, missions fail. In our case, the Taurus XLs that failed for the OCO and Glory missions resulted in the loss of more than $700 million, and years of people’s scientific work.
‘It is critical that we are able to trust our industry to produce, test and certify materials in accordance with the standards we require. In this case, our trust was severely violated.’
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