Engineers at Lockheed Martin are adding structural braces to fix the cracks found in the first Orion capsule.
Engineers at Lockheed Martin are adding structural braces to fix the cracks found in the first Orion capsule.
Engineers have designed a “doubler” to place over the cracks to ensure the craft can sustain loads from pressure, launch and landing. Geyer said two of the structural aids, similar to devices regularly used on airplanes, could be added to the spacecraft. “We’ve come up with a great plan to basically bridge over those cracks to distribute the load so we don’t see any issues on orbit,” Geyer said.
How reassuring.
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Engineers at Lockheed Martin are adding structural braces to fix the cracks found in the first Orion capsule.
Engineers have designed a “doubler” to place over the cracks to ensure the craft can sustain loads from pressure, launch and landing. Geyer said two of the structural aids, similar to devices regularly used on airplanes, could be added to the spacecraft. “We’ve come up with a great plan to basically bridge over those cracks to distribute the load so we don’t see any issues on orbit,” Geyer said.
How reassuring.
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 can only imagine the sorts of development problems that SpaceX and others have had with their items, but we’ll never know. As a federal program, everything is laid bare, by law.
What? You think SpaceX gets everything correct 100% of time? Of course they don’t. But they are not compelled to tell you anything about their missteps.
Aw, crud, I mistyped. I meant to say:
“With Orion, as a federal program, everything is laid bare, by law”
What they are adding, the rest of the world just calls ‘gussets’.
It just means they cut their design way to close to the structural limits of the material they are working with.
I bet they cut the material thickness back as far as possible just to save weight. And now that they have to add material to the structure to strengthen it they are losing a portion of that savings.
Just engineers over engineering something and typically running into problems easily foreseen that they thought they were smart enough to get around.
But this could be excused as exactly what we want NASA to do. Push the boundaries of everything right up to the breaking point so that private industry has a better idea of what they themselves can do in the real world.
I just wish their working projects didn’t cost so much and fail so regularly.
Reminds me of the saying…”You don’t want to ever see how sauseges are made.”
But I make sausage.
It would be nice to read Kelly’s opinion on this.