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An “incident” with the James Webb Space Telescope has occurred
- deodorel 5y agoIf some vibration on the launch pad is that serious, what will it happen during the actual launch with a lot more vibrations and g forces?
- TwoFerMaggie 5y agoI think the difference is whether the vibration is expected. Vibrations from being launched are probably accounted for and tested numerous times, while an unintended vibration caused by a "sudden, unplanned release of a clamp band" could cause unforeseen damages to the instrument.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- NikolaeVarius 5y agoThe probe is rated for that. It is not rated for being dropped.
- mannykannot 5y agoThe statement does not actually say anything about the magnitude of the vibrations during this incident, let alone how they compare to those expected during launch.
- kobalsky 5y agoI think the difference in G forces sustained during launch and when hitting the floor are few orders of magnitude off.
- willis936 5y ago"Some vibration" doesn't give the same feeling in the reader as the techs and engineers on the floor felt when they heard a 10 Bn USD science project that millions of people are hoping to learn from crashes into the ground.
- jacknews 5y agoI guess it's fitting that a telescope named after a bureaucrat is years late and billions over budget.
- xupybd 5y agoThat sounds serious, but if they are no delaying it by much can we assume it's not too serious?
- arbitrage 5y agoA committee decided that the potential danger from cold weather to o-ring gaskets wasn't too serious. That's how the Challenger blew up.
- OneTimePetes 5y agoCommittees the homeopathic responsibility dilution of any thoroughly dysfunctional organization. Make them agree on the one who should shoulder responsibility for a possible problem, to crash the process.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Forge36 5y agoHopefully they've learn from that mistake. Especially after making it twice.
- throwanem 5y agoIt took 17 years for the lesson to decay to a lethal level last time, and that was 18 years ago. We can hope it's stuck better this time, I suppose.
- raverbashing 5y agoActually the engineering committee of Morton-Thiokol (the real engineers, not the managers) did flag it as risky. But hey, we need to launch, right?
- Verdex 5y agoReading through the history of that is ridiculous. E: Hey we're pretty sure this is going to kill people. M: Are you sure? Maybe we can just do it while thinking really positive thoughts. Meanwhile one of the managers responsible for giving the 'go signal' still blames the engineers. "Hey, if it was unsafe the engineers should have said so." Ignoring that he had been bullying them for hours to shut up about how it was unsafe. The dramatization of the event in one of the documentaries stands out to me. "I'm going to go around the room and if anyone knows that this thing is definitely unsafe, then they need to speak up." WRONG. You go around the room and make everyone explicitly say it's safe. If anyone refuses you don't launch. They might seem like logical duals, but there is a huge difference. This problem was a management problem.
- HenryKissinger 5y agoMaybe, just maybe, if we stopped building telescopes like fragile porcelain dolls with glass heads that can't take a scratch and started building them like tanks that can take a beating..
- hobs 5y agoThen we could spend 10,000x on the launch? Nah, let's let the people managing the rocket science continue to do so.
- PeterisP 5y agoSoon we might have an option to avoid the extreme mass and size restrictions caused by having to squeeze the JWT on top of Ariane 5 - if/when Starship proves viable, then we could probably cut the cost of the telescope development by an order of magnitude by being able to choose a reasonable tradeoff instead of sacrificing everything (complexity, cost, reliability) just to cut down some weight and size.
- hoseja 5y agoWeird how this pure science instrument seems to be constructed entirely out of porcine muscle tissue.
- NikolaeVarius 5y agoWeird how a complex piece of machinery with tight tolerances doesn't like things that could damage it.
- throwanem 5y ago...they'd mass too much to launch. But I'm sure they'd look neat mounted on plinths in front of the KSC parking lot!
- patrick0d 5y agoWe should add treads and a cannon while we're at it. Is outer space counted when we say "all terrain"?
- yosito 5y ago"Technicians were preparing to attach Webb to the launch vehicle adapter, which is used to integrate the observatory with the upper stage of the Ariane 5 rocket," NASA said in a blog post. "A sudden, unplanned release of a clamp band—which secures Webb to the launch vehicle adapter—caused a vibration throughout the observatory."
- mcast 5y agoThis is engineer speak for "we dropped it"
- _qyya 5y agoAlso, possibly a misfire. The clamp is under spring tension that can approach 50,000 Newtons, and the separation mechanism can use explosive bolts. Not sure which configuration this launch entails but the telescope itself weighs 6,500 kg, so that sounds like a lot of energy to account for. Ariane 5 user's manual, PDF: https://www.arianespace.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Ariane5_users_manual_Issue5_July2011.pdf https://www.arianespace.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Arian...
- dylan604 5y agoSomething about a rocket having a user's manual makes me smile. Seems like a proper space agency name for this document would be much more space program sounding than just "user's manual". Even software programmers use terms like User Acceptance Training instead of just training. That one always makes me laugh too though, "You're going to learn to accept this software whether you like it or not."
- isnotchicago 5y agoI have never heard of User Acceptance Training. I have heard of User Acceptance Testing (UAT), which is about users testing the software, not training users on the software. The goal of UAT is to work with the user to verify that the software's functionality and usability are "acceptable". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_testing#User_acceptance_testing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_testing#User_accept...
- nkcmr 5y agoWhat is the plan for these sorts of highly-expensive, super-delicate instruments in an environment where Russia (or other spacefaring nations) just blow things up leaving huge clouds of debris that would destroy it in seconds? Does the JWST just operate at a different level of orbit or something? (edit: don't just single out Russia)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- zzt123 5y agoThere is no current interest by anyone in destroying science telescope rather than spy telescopes. Also, the JWT is at L2, 1.5m km from earth, whereas ASAT tests generally occur in LEO. Cosmos 1408 as you mention orbited at around 500km. Although I’m certain we could blow up the JWT if we really really wanted to.
- nkcmr 5y agoSorry, should have made my comment more clear. Wasn't suggesting that Russia would blow up JWST. Rather, it might inadvertently be damaged by one destroying a different satellite, and the debris from that colliding with JWST.
- koheripbal 5y agoThat is not a risk where JWST is going. It will not be in Earth orbit.
- gvb 5y agoYes - Lagrange point L2 which is a waaaay different orbit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point
- thatcherc 5y agoYup - JWST will be way high up in space, much farther away than the Moon and plenty far from the debris we talk about in low Earth orbit. The telescope actually orbits the Sun, not Earth, at a point called "Earth-Sun L2", which is a point in line with the Earth. L2 is one of 5 Lagrange points in the Earth-Sun system, which are special spots objects can orbit around (stably or unstably) without there being a central body.
- yummybear 5y agoYikes - please don't. But rather a fixable problem on earth than an unfixable at L2
- thewakalix 5y agoAnother addition for Foone's thread!
- ramesh31 5y agoWe should be launching a new JWST every year. And we could, for a tiny fraction of the cost of a single large DOD project. Hopefully Starship will make these once-in-a-generation level missions more commonplace, so we're not losing our minds over every tiny thing that can go wrong with this thing.
- FourHand451 5y agoAre you implying that yearly launches would reduce cost through economies of scale or something? Or just that JWST costs less than the F-35 program? While having a Starship sized fairing to put JWST in for launch would probably reduce some packaging complexity, I'm not sure the launch vehicle is the major source of cost in this case.
- mhandley 5y agoDoes anyone know how much of the price tag for JWST is manufacturing, as opposed to research/design/development costs? I would expect the actual manufacturing is a very small fraction, so I don't understand why they haven't built two of them - would seem to be good insurance for just this sort of mishap. And if you do find a problem when the first one is commissioned at the inaccessible L2 point, you at least have some chance to correct it on the second one. Best case is you get two for nearly the price of one.
- thuccess129 5y agoThe Voyager 1 and 2 probes had this kind of strategy to cover for failure.
- drybjed 5y agoFirst rule in government spending - why build one when you can have two twice the price? -- S. R. Hadden, Contact (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et4sMJP9FmM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et4sMJP9FmM)
- adventured 5y agoThey may not have the labor to build two of them. It's exceptionally difficult to put together the team necessary to build one of them. The US isn't a serious nation any longer. The US is increasingly becoming a clown show. The response you'd get if you suggested to consider building two of them - for the reasons you mention - is that people would freak out (two boondoggles, $20 billion in cost, decades of time; that would be the flailing, screeching response).
- GDC7 5y ago> is that people would freak out And rightfully so. What's the ROI? The hard limit for stuff which is not aimed at producing an improvement in quality of life of taxpayers should be in the dozens of millions , not billions. Quality of life improvement can be delayed 40 or 50 years, but there should be at least a path. James Webb Space Telescope has no path, nor does Hubble, nor does the ISS, nor do the Mars missions (private or public), and neither did the Apollo missions as the program was shut down for bankruptcy essentially. Had the Soviet done the same we'd be laughing at their juvinile understanding of economics, ROI and ROE. On the other hand NASA mission to collide with an asteroid has a path to save us all , ITER has a path (no pun intended) , mRNA research has a freaking highway at this point, biotech also has a path, even China's bridges to nowhere to pump GDP have a path sometime in the future.
- scrooched_moose 5y agoTo everyone saying "what's the big deal, it sees more vibration on launch": It sounds to me like this is more of an unintended shock event (see zeeb's response below) that caused an oscillation at the natural frequency ("vibration") but they tortuously avoided using the word "shock". This would result in a given shock response spectrum [1], which effectively can amplify the input if it hits any part's natural frequency - e.g. a 1G input shock could become a 5G response somewhere in the satellite. I assume this wasn't accounted for in design so they'll determine if this could have damaged any onboard systems. Launch vibration has a well known Power Spectral Density [2] which effectively says how much energy is being input at every frequency. If they design the system so no parts have a natural frequency at a high-energy peak it's safe. Shock and vibration are closely related, but very different in practice. It's all about natural frequencies and what frequencies the energy is being input at. 1) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_response_spectrum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_response_spectrum 2) https://vru.vibrationresearch.com/lesson/what-is-the-psd/ https://vru.vibrationresearch.com/lesson/what-is-the-psd/
- laydn 5y agoIs the JWST in a state where they can open it up and inspect? Or are they just going to run simulations to see if the shock/vibration would cause any anomalies?
- scrooched_moose 5y agoMy guess based on the very limited press release and some aerospace experience: Because it's only a 4 day slip, they'll start with simulations to look for any systems that may have been damaged. If they don't see any issues assembly and launch will continue. If simulations show that this may have damaged a component, we'll see a longer delay as they begin replacing systems.
- zeeb 5y agoRUAG makes most of the "payload adapters" that integrate the satellite onto the top of a rocket. Based on the size of JWST they're probably using a 1666 model payload adapter. RUAG's clamp-bands and separation system have a very well characterized Shock Response Spectrum [0, pg. 4], which would have been accounted for in the design of JWST. But the spacecraft and satellite usually separate after the initial shock of the explosive bolt and clamp-band de-tensioning, so they may need to investigate any coupling or recontact of the clamp-band. If we're lucky they had some accelerometers running during integration and can review actual response data. 0) https://www.ruag.com/system/files/media_document/2019-03/PLE-Brochure-Payload-Adapter-and-Separation-Systems.pdf https://www.ruag.com/system/files/media_document/2019-03/PLE...
- 323 5y agoMaybe Elon is right, and instead of spending tens of billions of dollars and decades on one bulletproof piece of jewelry, maybe we should just launch 20 cheaply built ones with less redundancy and hope a couple make it through. Think monolith mainframe versus cluster of commodity hardware. There was a great article about this recently on HN, about how Spaceship will change everything with it's extremely cheap price per kilo and how NASA is not ready for it.
- jazzyjackson 5y agoThis is not Elon’s idea, there was much clamoring in the scientific community to spread the research dollars instead of having one flagship suck up all the funding. It’s a big gamble to be able to see what JWST is designed to see, no number of smaller projects would match it, whether it was the best use of our taxdollars remains to be seen
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- GDC7 5y ago> Maybe Elon is right, and instead of spending tens of billions of dollars and decades on one bulletproof piece of jewelry Musk is pretty much socially incompetent, proven so many times. On this topic he discounts the fact that the type of individuals needed to do this job have plenty of offers and nobody wants to work on something which will blow up and has very low odds of making it. Especially smart people who bathe in the concept of opportuinity cost with regards to their time and carrer.
- an9n 5y agoUh...
- SahAssar 5y agoDo you think that 20 cheap telescopes give the same benefit as one great one? Like if I gave you 20 shitty 360p cameras to shoot a movie would it look as good as if I gave you one Arri Alexa?
- bguebert 5y agoalso here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29312304 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29312304
- Out_of_Characte 5y agoIts easy to say "Just build two of them" or to say the telescope shouldn't have so many single points of failure. To that I say that a single copy is the only reasonable option. JWT is essentially a prototype and a product in one. The first to employ such a complex radiation shield, The first to have berrylium mirrors (AFAIK), The first to orbit L2. A copy would inherit any unknown problems with the first telescope, which is especially bad if you've read how many times the JWT has run overbudget and ran into issues. You're better off launching the prototype product to learn what will go wrong and go from there. The lack of doubles in space shows how exiting the field is because I'd rather have novel prototypes than another hubble.
- boibombeiro 5y agoGood point. But doing two concurrenct desing would allow as backups for failures not in the telescope itself. For things like lauch, assembly, handling, etc. If everything goes as planned, having two observatories sure would be appreciated by the scientific community. Also, I assume, most the costs are associated with the project and setup of fabrication.
- jobigoud 5y ago> The lack of doubles in space shows how exiting the field is because I'd rather have novel prototypes than another hubble. There are some doubles though. Voyager 1 & 2, Spirit and Opportunity…
- helloworld653 5y agoDidn't the CIA have a very similar telescope to Hubble that they donated?
- bargle0 5y agoIt was the NRO in 2012. I don’t know if the CIA operates satellites itself.
- boibombeiro 5y ago
- joshuahedlund 5y ago> at least December 22 Still under one month? At least the slope is still less than one[1] [1]https://xkcd.com/2014/ https://xkcd.com/2014/
- netcraft 5y agoI'm starting to think Hadden had the right idea - "why build one when you can build two at twice the price"
- ryanSrich 5y ago"NASA's follow-on instrument to the wildly successful Hubble Space Telescope was originally due to launch about a decade ago" I don't think anything else could better express just how bad the government is at deploying capital than the sentence above. Say what you will above SpaceX, but what they've been able to achieve in the time that this launch has been DELAYED is astounding.
- marricks 5y agoThe question was never how to launch it or when but building and testing the telescope. SpaceX has no proven or even theoretical skill in building telescopes.
- idlewords 5y agoYeah but Elon says he can build 1000 telescopes a year for free on Mars.
- NikolaeVarius 5y agoLinks plz
- idlewords 5y agoBuilding a giant space telescope where everything has to work right the first time is hard. Building a capital-intensive project like Webb on a NASA budget cycle is hard. I find the idea that everyone at NASA is a bunch of fools a pretty tiresome theme in these discussions.
- ryanSrich 5y agoIt’s less the individuals at NASA, and more the bureaucratic structure of government agencies that’s the problem.
- NationalPark 5y agoIsn't SpaceX an example of the government deploying capital? Since they are a government contractor?
- jl6 5y agoWould it be possible to build an autonomously-assembling modular space telescope, launched piecemeal, with each piece rendezvousing at L2 and bolting on to the previous pieces? The idea being to lower the launch stakes.
- 0xffff2 5y agoPossible? probably. Lower complexity than the monstrosity that is JWST? Doubtful.
- rafaelturk 5y agoI'm impressed with the price tag of the Webb $10B.
- asdff 5y agoIt's jaw droppingly low. That money would only buy you a couple miles of new subway in nyc today.
- SahAssar 5y ago> Let's be honest, words like "incident," "sudden," and "vibration" are not the kinds of expressions one wants to hear about the handling of a delicate and virtually irreplaceable instrument like the Webb telescope. This reminded me of the terms the kerbal space program community use like "Rapid Unplanned Disassembly (RUD)" and "Lithobraking" (crashing into the ground thus "braking" and often breaking, an usually unwanted alternative to aerobraking). I wouldn't be surprised to see the KSP community use Sudden Vibration Incident as a euphemism for what happens when you exit time-warp and sometimes the whole spaceship turns into a vibrating jelly.