Russia Blames a Bad Sensor For Its Failed Soyuz Rocket Launch (wired.com) 57
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: On Thursday, Russian officials held a press conference to reveal that they have determined what caused last month's Soyuz mid-flight failure. The culprit: a damaged sensor on one of the rocket's four boosters responsible for stage separation. With the investigation complete, the officials announced that they will move up the date of the next crew launch to the International Space Station. Russian space agency officials confirmed that the faulty sensor, designed to signal stage separation, had caused one of the boosters to improperly separate. This led the first and second stages of the rocket to collide, which then triggered the vehicle's emergency abort system.
Video of the incident, released today by the space agency, shows the accident from the rocket's point of view. In it, the booster in question strikes the core of the rocket, causing a significant jolt, which triggered the abort. According to officials, the afflicted sensor rod was bent slightly during the assembly of the rocket. To check for any handling errors that might have also affected other rockets, Russian officials said that all assembled Soyuz rockets -- and their attached booster pack -- will be taken apart and put together anew.
Video of the incident, released today by the space agency, shows the accident from the rocket's point of view. In it, the booster in question strikes the core of the rocket, causing a significant jolt, which triggered the abort. According to officials, the afflicted sensor rod was bent slightly during the assembly of the rocket. To check for any handling errors that might have also affected other rockets, Russian officials said that all assembled Soyuz rockets -- and their attached booster pack -- will be taken apart and put together anew.
Scott Manley has a good video analysis (Score:5, Informative)
Scott Manley has a good video analysis.
The problem was with a bent pin seemingly 'forced' in during assembly rather than the sensor itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Re:Scott Manley has a good video analysis (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah they use non binary gender connectors.
Hermaphroditic connectors (Score:2)
Hermaphroditic connectors have advantages also.
Sometimes connectors have ambiguous gender.
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Margin for error = small (Score:5, Insightful)
Props for the abort system which apparently did its job flawlessly, but... it's a bit worrying that one bent pin on a sensor can do in the entire system.
You know there is a reason that "rocket science" is the standard analogy phrase used for a difficult endeavor. Rockets are chock full of seemingly mundane things that can result in disaster if they don't perform perfectly in extremely high stress conditions. Aside from maybe military combat equipment I can't think of any devices we make which experience tougher conditions with less safety margin.
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>Aside from maybe military combat equipment
Military combat equipment doesn't need a safety margin. It's supposed to be unsafe.
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Military combat equipment doesn't need a safety margin. It's supposed to be unsafe.
It's supposed to be unsafe for the enemy, yeah. Not for the user.
Safety margin in military equipment (Score:2)
Military combat equipment doesn't need a safety margin. It's supposed to be unsafe.
It does if you want it actually do its job. I assure you that you want as much safety margin in your tank armor as possible. You want your rifle to still be able to shoot straight if it gets some dirt in it. You want your A10 to still be able to fly home after getting hit with some anti-aircraft fire. You want your engine to still operate in a dusty and super hot desert because you'll die if it fails on you. You want your submarine to be able to dive deeper than you hope to need it to dive. Safety marg
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Props for the abort system which apparently did its job flawlessly, but... it's a bit worrying that one bent pin on a sensor can do in the entire system.
You know there is a reason that "rocket science" is the standard analogy phrase used for a difficult endeavor. Rockets are chock full of seemingly mundane things that can result in disaster if they don't perform perfectly in extremely high stress conditions. Aside from maybe military combat equipment I can't think of any devices we make which experience tougher conditions with less safety margin.
Hopefully medical equipment, especially life-support and implants, are made to very high standards.
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Yes, no question, I agree completely. I was just thinking about the physical device construction. Fortunately (hopefully) the software can be fixed if someone cares to. Might aught to be some laws, but it would be very tricky to set standards, and they'd have to be changed frequently as security / encryption is being enhanced. I hope I never need to rely on anything like that, well, unless I have some say and review of the software, network settings, etc.
High physical stress environments (Score:2)
Hopefully medical equipment, especially life-support and implants, are made to very high standards.
Being made to high standards doesn't mean the product has to operate in a high physical stress environment. My company makes medical equipment and none of it is subjected to the sorts of forces and stresses you find in a rocket launch nor does it have the weight vs performance limitations. Furthermore most medical equipment doesn't have to deal with the tyranny of the rocket equation [wikipedia.org] and the engineering limitations it imposes. Everything in a rocket has to be made as light as possible which causes some r
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Props for the abort system which apparently did its job flawlessly, but... it's a bit worrying that one bent pin on a sensor can do in the entire system.
Your sig is pretty relevant, Jared. And yes, rocketry sits at the edge of stresses where one simple wrong thing can ruin your whole day, and quickly.
Kudos to the Russians for finding and making certain the other candles are assembled properly, as well as that real time confirmation that the abort system functions well.
I too enjoy Manley's Youtube channel
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Bend a pin on a CPU and watch what happens.
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One of the things that struck me about this rocket is how its very recognizably the same rocket family that launched Sputnik, only refined.
That's a good thing. Americans' attitude is that anything old is automatically junk. We throw it away and look for something completely new and different. The Russians keep it and tweak it to make it a little better, and after years and years of doing that the old stuff gets very good indeed. That's why the Russians never lost the ability to put men in space, where
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Props for the abort system which apparently did its job flawlessly
That can't be stressed enough, it's impressive that the rocket core took a hit from a booster with no loss of life.
it's a bit worrying that one bent pin on a sensor can do in the entire system.
Or a piece of falling foam can doom an orbiter. Yeah, it's worrying.
The Russians don't seem to be learning... (Score:3)
Remember when an assembly worker had hammered-in [russianspaceweb.com] the Proton-M sensors upside down? And instead of looking at their QA process they announced something in the lines of "don't worry, we found the worker and fired him"? I remember it was discussed here how this mentality would lead to more control issues, and it does appear they have learned nothing.
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Exactly this
Bad sensor, bad! (Score:2)
Just smack it with a wrench (Score:5, Funny)
American components, Russian components - all made in Taiwan!
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Somebody did, hence the broken sensor. Hollywood Movies - Weapons of mass disinformation and yet banned by no treaty
A little old school, but... (Score:2)
Imagine (Score:1)
A Beowulf cluster of damaged sensors.
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Re:Imagine (Score:5, Interesting)
I feel a bit nostalgic, it's almost like the old /. was back.
Ok, only the bad memes of the old /., but ... hey, I take what I can get.
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*sniff*
Thank you.
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Not just that, it blends!
It was that or the Russians. (Score:2)
It was that or the Russians and they're hardly going to blame themselves, are they?
I suppose they could blame Mexicans but most of them don't even know where Mexico is. On second thoughts, that doesn't seem to prevent Americans doing it.
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I suppose they could blame Mexicans but most of them don't even know where Mexico is. On second thoughts, that doesn't seem to prevent Americans doing it.
Most Americans know where Mexico is, because that's where cousin Ed goes to get his oxycontin.
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There is a better place for that [youtube.com].
Drill? (Score:4, Interesting)
Was it the same drill guy who was up there trying to turn the ISS into swiss cheese?
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is bound to fail
ANYTHING used often enough and long enough WILL fail. Neither Russia or the USA is immune from statistics.
What about NASA's high quality standards? (Score:1)
As a result US astronauts are still forced to fly on older less than perfectly safe Russian spacecraft instead of newer and better (but not good enough for NASA) US spacecraft.