OIG: Impact Of SpaceX SPX-7 Mission Failure
NASA’s Response to SpaceX’s June 2015 Launch Failure: Impacts on Commercial Resupply of the International Space Station, NASA OIG
“… The most significant item lost during the SPX-7 mission was the first of two Docking Adapters necessary to support upcoming commercial crew missions. Although NASA had planned to have two Adapters installed on the Station before the first commercial crew demonstration mission scheduled for May 2017, it is now likely there will be only one installed in time for these missions.
… we also found that for the first seven cargo missions NASA did not fully utilize the unpressurized cargo space available in the Dragon 1 capsule’s trunk, averaging 423 kg for SPX-3 through SPX-7 even though the trunk is capable of carrying more. The ISS Program noted that unpressurized payloads depend on manifest priority, payload availability, and mission risk, and acknowledged it struggled to fully utilize this space on early missions, but as of June 2016 the Agency’s cargo manifests show full trunks on all future SpaceX cargo resupply missions.
… risk mitigation procedures are not consistently employed and the subjective launch ratings the Agency uses provide insufficient information to NASA management concerning actual launch risks. In addition, NASA does not have an official, coordinated, and consistent mishap investigation policy for commercial resupply launches, which could affect its ability to determine the root cause of a launch failure and implement corrective actions.”
“In addition, NASA does not have an official, coordinated, and consistent mishap investigation policy for commercial resupply launches, which could affect its ability to determine the root cause of a launch failure and implement corrective actions.”
Well, duh…
The Contractor investigates.
The FAA investigates (or rather oversees the investigation).
The Contractor’s other clients and potential clients participate or provide oversight, and so does a representative with NASA.
All of the above are partners in the investigation and get to see the results and how those results were gathered.
This complaint totally misses the long-haul objectives of the COTS program…to build an infrastructure that can function on its own without direct NASA participation.
I agree. I again can’t understand how the OIG can be so off base.
Not sure they are off-base, clearly they don’t feel constrained by the hands off attitude we adopt when “commercial contract” is invoked. And I am not at all convinced a complete “hands off” is at all appropriate. You’re missing what OIG was pointing to, I’d have hoped for discussion HERE of the impact of the docking ring loss (for example) on the protracted commercial crew activity…hoped, but know better than to hold my breath 😉
Well, if you are worried about the docking equipment, and what NASA should have done, I’d say there some things the report should have covered.
Did NASA use backup hardware or schedule margin to mitigate this risk? For something in the critical path, a program should always have plans to mitigate the risk of a known, significant risk. Failure of a launch vehicle before its 20th flight counts. So NASA’s plans should have included a plan B. If they did not, the OIG report should have asked why they did not, and how they would make sure they did in the future. Backup hardware and schedule margin are viable backup plans.
I’m just saying that there should be a noticeably different approach between the “we own you and everything you build” style of contracting and “we pay you to run your show” style of contracting, when it comes to mishap investigations. I’m not sure this particular wording of this OIG finding reflects any such distinction.
It didn’t look to me like “hands off” is an accurate way to describe NASAs treatment of the investigation. “This is an FAA matter, but I’ve got my eye on you!” seems like a better description.
As for the docking collar, there was a backup but that backup did need to be deeper.
my impression was that “we” tend to exPECT a “hands off” from NASA more and more and particularly with “commercial”/COTS
It doesn’t appear there will be any impact on the commercial crew flight schedule. SpaceX conducted the investigation with NASA and FAA participation. The cause of the vehicle loss was identified and corrected expeditiously. Man years of contingency planning and investigation boards and billions in spares procurement would not have made it any faster, better, or cheaper. I am not questioning the OIG’s integrity or sincerity. But I think the OIG also needs to demonstrate that it also has practical experience and reasoned judgement.
They did both, which is why the report didn’t cover it.
Most of the IDA parts had spares, which is basically what is allowing IDA-3 to be built without great expense. As far as I know, the only major parts that needed to be fabricated for IDA-3 are the external housing and the launch adapter.
IDA-2 is, itself, a backup. Technically they only need one docking adapter for the Commercial Crew vehicles (unless there is a great emergency, there will never be both CC vehicles on the ISS at the same time), and currently it seems that the first few CC test flights will occur with only the one docking adapter on-station. NASA thinks that IDA-3 will be able to be operational well before ISS Commercial Crew transfer flights begin, IDA-3 is scheduled for delivery on SpaceX CRS-12, which is currently slated for April 2017, but that is likely to bump to a few months later.
I’ll run with my analogy just a tad bit more. Suppose the docking adapter had been lost in a plane crash during shipping. Would the IG be correct to say NASA needs a process to conduct it’s own investigation of plane crashes?
Where might the analogy work, where not?
Well, the statement is factually correct. I can’t tell from context if it was intended as a comment or a criticism (I haven’t read the whole report.) I wouldn’t mind if NASA had an official, consistent policy on the subject, specifically one requiring the contractor to have their own written policies on how to conduct the investigation, and requiring that these policies conform to FAQ regulations. NASA doesn’t need to run the investigation, but they should have a policy of only contracting to launch providers who have a plan for conducting a competent investigation on their own.
I’m pretty sure they have that last bit.
Your points are important. To use an analogy, if the US Department of X sent some valuable cargo somewhere using FedEx, and the plane crashed, we would not expect the US Gov’t who sent along their cargo to get deep into the investigation. This would be the NTSB’s job.
We can only hope that sooner, rather than later, we are in mature enough a state with space launch that the analogy fits entirely, appropriately (legally, structurally, by parties, etc.)
Exactly. It almost sounds like the OIG doesn’t even understand that SpaceX and Orbital represent the first stage of a paradigm shift away from reliance on NASA.
I’ve been an Air Force contractor, so I do see the OIG’s point. If an uncrewed SLS launch were to crash and destroy an equivalent value in payload, and NASA left it up to the SLS contractors to conduct the investigation, to the same degree as they did with SpaceX and Orbital last year, then this OIG wording would be completely appropriate. In that case the flight would be a NASA flight, not an Orbital or SpaceX flight, with SLS a NASA property to be used only on NASA missions and NASA owns the bird and the infrastructure and is responsible for same. NASA should then be the facilitator of the investigation with everyone else behaving like proxy NASA employees.
NASA sort of acts as a defacto certifying authority over the U.S. based Commercial Space crewed flight and support industry, because of COTS and Commercial Crew. But to allow the COTS program to operate as designed, with its full long-term purpose in mind, NASA had to make a decision early on whether or not to also be the REGULATORY agency with authority over crewed flight and support in the Commercial Space industry…the FAA of LEO crewed space use. They decided not. Therefore, the FAA is in charge, just as they would be in the event of a 747 crash. Since SpaceX and Orbital know more about rockets and orbital flight than the FAA does, the FAA pretty much did the same thing. Watch and see if the investigation effort is acceptable and results credible.
Now I ask those of you with better expertise in such matters and better knowledge than I. Were those investigations responsible? Were they the space equivalent of what would be expected of any other industry player in any other industry after an accident with similar monetary damages and no human injuries or loss of life?
“NASA does not have an official, coordinated, and consistent mishap investigation policy for commercial resupply launches, which could affect its ability to determine the root cause of a launch failure and implement corrective actions.””
Does NASA have an official coordinated, and consistent mishap investigation policy for commercial resupply freight trucks bringing supplies to NASA centers? For FEDex truck mishaps? For UPS supply truck mishaps?