NASA has a “Workmanship” section of their site to “illustrate some of the reasons behind NASA’s workmanship and process requirements. The pictures contained in these pages are actual images of space flight hardware that failed during testing (primarily during vibration or thermal cycle environmental tests). The troubleshooting and repairs necessary to restore the hardware to flightworthy conditions are usually a substantial cost and schedule impact on the affected Programs”. Amazing stuff! –
14 thoughts on “NASA Workmanship pictorial reference”
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Wow. That site is HUGE!
Most of that stuff is common sense, however, it shows the challenges that the NASA equipment must go through.
I can’t find anything on the site about the radiation testing the equipment must endure to be sent into space. Am I just not finding it?
I can’t find anything on the site about the radiation testing the equipment must endure to be sent into space. Am I just not finding it?
I can’t find anything on the site about the radiation testing the equipment must endure to be sent into space. Am I just not finding it?
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/18nov_eaftc.htm
Check that out.
The lack of reference to radiation testing is probably because these links serve as a reference to workmanship involving the production and assembly of components. Radiation testing and mitigation fall into the design component. I can assure you, though, that NASA does have guidelines in place for that as well. It just may not be publicly available. Space technology (including knowledge) is regulated as an “Arm” as in the weapons kind under the ITAR regulations. What was posted here is mostly obvious stuff for any electronics manufacturing which needs to withstand high acceleration vibration.
Something tells me my electronics prototyping work won’t be going into space anytime soon.