In the world of aeronautics and astrophysics, I suppose there are numerous reasons the expert’s list for why a “simple” rocket launch fails. I’m afraid I can’t name one of them! However, I am all-too-familiar with another problem that is quite outside of trajectories or rocket thrust: fraud. Why the rocket failed to launch, faked test results provided by metals fabricator. This same fabricator has been used for over 20 years!
Recently NASA confirmed the reason for the failures of two satellite launches. The satellites were a measly $700 million which, I suppose, is a pittance in the space program. After exhaustive testing, NASA concluded that the reason two missions failed was due to the fact that the metals fabricator who sold materials to the agency faked their results and their tests. The materials were faulty and the fabricator knew it.
Sapa Profiles
Sapa Profiles is an Oregon parts supplier that certified the parts it sold to NASA. The NASA investigation revealed that for nearly 20 years the company has intentionally faked test results. It was not only to NASA but to several companies requiring expensive specialty parts. In any event, some of the parts Sapa Profiles certified are employed in the Taurus XL rocket, a rocket that was to deliver weather satellites between 2009 and 2011. The parts failed to properly activate the satellites.
The director for launch services for the space agency, Jim Norman, said: “When testing results are altered and certifications are provided falsely, missions fail.”
Obviously, when satellites fail, it is much more than a mechanical failure. It is about failures of research, failures to collect data and years of scientific hopes and dreams that are lost. It is difficult to put a price tag on research results. Suffice it to say, the losses strike at the very heart of space exploration.
Who is ultimately responsible for a fraud of this nature?
Sapa Profiles is a wholly-owned company of Norsk Hydro ASA, a Norwegian company and the current owner of Sapa. Norsk Hydro has just settled with NASA to the tune of $46 million as well as to several other agencies. They have agreed the fraud started in 1996 and ran through 2015. Sapa Profiles has changed its name to Hydro Extrusion Portland Inc. in an apparent public relations move to clean its image.
Can’t Fake Unethical Behavior – Why the Rocket Failed to Launch
The parts company, no matter its current name, is barred from any further federal contract bidding. In addition to the fraud stemming from faking test results, they have also admitted to mail fraud.
Norsk Hydro has told investigators it has completely overhauled its quality control procedures. One can only wonder if any manned space flights employed the faulty parts. It appears as though the parent company and its subsidiary colluded to deliver faulty parts.
In a statement made by Brian Benczkowski, the assistant attorney general of the criminal division at the Department of Justice (my italics):
“Corporate and personal greed perpetuated this fraud against the government and other private customers, and this resolution holds these companies accountable for the harm caused by their scheme.”
How could test engineers, quality assurance departments and executives at two companies have rationalized their unethical behavior? They might have seen NASA as “the government,” as an entity rather than people, or as a piggy-bank with unlimited funds to spend. Though all of those complicit in the fraud might have vociferously denied it, they saw an opportunity in an atmosphere of a lack of oversight and their need to kick profits back up the ladder.
In the absence of ethical expectations and ethical training, the end result is always these types of failures.
