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From:
ross@gerberkawasaki.com
In early January, SpaceX adamantly denied rumors that it had
botched the launch of a classified spy satellite called Zuma,
and now, a new government probe has absolved the company of
blame for the spacecraft’s loss. Government investigators
looking into the mission determined that a structure on top of
the rocket, called the payload adapter, failed to deploy the
satellite into orbit, The Wall Street Journal reports. That
adapter was built by defense contractor Northrop Grumman, which
means SpaceX isn’t at fault for Zuma’s demise.
This scenario aligns with what many speculated at the time.
SpaceX launched Zuma on top of its Falcon 9 rocket on January
7th, and just a day later, reports started to surface that the
satellite had fallen back to Earth and burned up in the
atmosphere after the mission. However, SpaceX president Gwynne
Shotwell claimed that the rocket performed as it was supposed
to. “For clarity: after review of all data to date, Falcon 9 did
everything correctly on Sunday night,” she said in a statement.
“If we or others find otherwise based on further review, we will
report it immediately. Information published that is contrary to
this statement is categorically false.”
So, how could the satellite have fallen back to Earth if the
Falcon 9 had worked just fine? Well, a report in Wired noted
that Northrop Grumman, which built the Zuma satellite, had also
provided the payload adapter, used to separate the spacecraft
from the top of the rocket. Experts speculated that perhaps the
adapter failed to disconnect the satellite once in orbit. The
top of the Falcon 9 then likely dragged Zuma back down to Earth
when the vehicle fell out of orbit.
The Wall Street Journal confirms that theory. Its report notes
that Zuma’s shape made it susceptible to damage from vibrations,
so Northrop Grumman modified an adapter to make the spacecraft’s
separation from the rocket more delicate. The adapter was tested
three times before the flight, the WSJ says, but it didn’t work
once in space. As a result, Zuma was dragged lower into the
atmosphere by the rocket. It eventually separated from the
rocket, according to the WSJ, but it was low and couldn’t be
saved. Northrop Grumman did not immediately respond to The
Verge’s request for comment.
The probe’s findings spell good news for SpaceX, which fielded a
lot of criticism for Zuma’s loss. During a congressional hearing
after the launch, members of the Science House Committee grilled
a SpaceX vice president about the failure, questioning if the
company’s vehicles were reliable. SpaceX soldiered on with its
Falcon 9 missions as if nothing was wrong, and the US Air Force
said that it would continue to launch satellites on the
company’s rocket.
Meanwhile, the payload adapter failure isn’t a good look for
Northrop Grumman, which is having a difficult time piecing
together another important spacecraft right now: NASA’s James
Webb Space Telescope. Northrop is the main contractor of the
telescope and is currently integrating large pieces of the
spacecraft at the company’s facilities in Redondo Beach,
California. However, NASA recently announced that James Webb’s
launch will have to be delayed until 2020, due to a number of
mistakes and delays that were made at Northrop during the
construction process.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/9/17215016/spacex-falcon-9-zuma- spacecraft-northrop-grumman-payload-adapter
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* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)