Webb launch delayed four days because of “incident” during stacking
NASA management has decided to delay the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope for four days while engineers investigate whether an “incident” that occurred during the telescope’s stacking on top of an Ariane 5 rocket could have long term consequences.
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. A sudden, unplanned release of a clamp band – which secures Webb to the launch vehicle adapter – caused a vibration throughout the observatory.
A NASA-led anomaly review board was immediately convened to investigate and instituted additional testing to determine with certainty the incident did not damage any components. NASA and its mission partners will provide an update when the testing is completed at the end of this week.
The launch had been scheduled for December 18th. They have now pushed it back to December 22nd.
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NASA management has decided to delay the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope for four days while engineers investigate whether an “incident” that occurred during the telescope’s stacking on top of an Ariane 5 rocket could have long term consequences.
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. A sudden, unplanned release of a clamp band – which secures Webb to the launch vehicle adapter – caused a vibration throughout the observatory.
A NASA-led anomaly review board was immediately convened to investigate and instituted additional testing to determine with certainty the incident did not damage any components. NASA and its mission partners will provide an update when the testing is completed at the end of this week.
The launch had been scheduled for December 18th. They have now pushed it back to December 22nd.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I have a very bad feeling about this. It scares me that so many astronomy eggs (and dollars) have been put into one very delicate basket. So many other worthy projects never happened because of Webb’s insatiable appetite for time and money. If this thing fails, it will be a catastrophe.
You’re gonna wish you had given me a call…
Got to love bureaucrat speak..
“A sudden, unplanned release of a clamp band.” strap broke and it fell down.
“caused a vibration throughout the observatory.” it was shaken like a can of beer.
I don’t know what happened about the complete unwillingness just explain things in plain English leads one to assume the worst.
It feels like we need a quote about “Top men” around now…
Raiders of the Lost Ark
“Top Men!”
https://youtu.be/ylJfYaYDCB8
1:50
The thing can‘t possibly be that fragile! It‘s going up on a rocket, fer cryin‘ out loud! If this fails, NASA should be closed down for good, with no chance to waste more money!
“Hey Nitwit! Where are the tools?”
“What tools?”
“The tools we been usin’ thirty years!”
“Ohhh….those tools…nyuk”
I thought slippage was part of the program.
I have to be unhappily honest…. I also have a very bad feeling about this telescope. I hope I am wrong, but it’s probably the most over engineered machine ever built. 300+ points of failure?
The space shuttle was over engineered out of the park, and was lucky to not fail sooner. Both catastrophic failures could have happened on its first flight if weather or plain luck had been different.
It’s what happens when engineers are given an unlimited budget.
I hope I am wrong, but I give the thing at most a 50/50.
David M. Cook wrote: “The thing can‘t possibly be that fragile!”
There are parts on spacecraft, such as the bearings* in the reaction wheels, that are sensitive to mechanical shock events, such as pyrotechnic devices that are used to release clamp bands and solar arrays. The report does not say what happened with the clamp band that gave a worse shock event than expected at release.
I have worked on spacecraft instruments that NASA required shock testing on engineering models.** I worked at a company that found a way to release solar arrays and some other deployments without pyrotechnics. The company considered this a technical advantage over other satellite manufacturers.
“If this fails, NASA should be closed down for good, with no chance to waste more money!”
Attitudes like this are why NASA is so careful about whether accidents such as this have caused damage to the sensitive parts. What should be a small problem becomes an existential concern, thus NASA wastes more money just to make sure that there isn’t a failure and that it isn’t closed down for good.
* My brother once worked at a company that started using roller conveyors to move their disc drive assemblies, only to discover that the conveyors were causing shock events in the drive bearings that resulted in an unacceptably high early failure rate. Goodbye roller conveyors, hello carts with inflated wheels.
** These shock tests used a piece of metal that was snapped apart in order to create in the instrument’s mounting plate the required vibration frequencies and levels in an instantaneous manner. I had expected something like tapping a hammer on the plate (similar to a modal vibration test), but apparently that was harder to control the vibration levels at the various frequency ranges.
If something goes wrong with the Webb telescope after launch, NASA now has a way to explain it, on the shelf and ready for deployment like a solar array . . .
What has been going wrong with JWST is not the gold plated beryllium mirror segments or the unique instruments developed by world leading scientists. It’s the “space bus” by Northrup Grumman. The simple standard things failed.
The small rocket engines leaked, risking contaminating the mirror with their fuel. The “whiskers” (is that English? It’s nuts) fell off into the instruments and took months to pick up most delicately. The Sun shield tore itself apart. And now a clamp band. I do wish a merry Christmas, but I’m not confident that Santa Clause will go all the way up there on the very last Ariane 5 waiting there in the jungle.
Perhaps it is a good sign that testing has already found so many things, now mended, that unexpectedly could go wrong?