Questions tagged [reliability]
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Is the failure to separate Starship from the Super Heavy booster a "dumb failure" and does it tell something about the project reliability? [duplicate]
Sorry for the possibly dumb question, but I don't know much about rocket technology.
As I gather, the main problem in the recently failed Elon Musk's Starship launch was that the Starship "...
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Launch options for a hobbyist cubesat builder who's not rich? [closed]
For a while now I've been waning to launch a satellite into space, making the satellite should be simple enough, I have some experience with Arduino and coding in general. but what I don't have is any ...
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Do vacuum-grade oils and greases trivially solve the "lubricants don't work in space, cold welding happens" problem (for short to moderate duration)?
(Related: How is the unwanted cold welding prevented in space?)
I've often seen talk about fairly simple mechanical devices (hand tools, simple handheld power tools, firearms, etc) being unlikely to ...
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Why do most space probes survive for far longer than they were designed for?
Looking back to Opportunity (Rest In Peace, little friend), it was apparently designed to operate for 90 days but it ended up going for 16 years which is approximately 64 times longer than the ...
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Which Cubesat Cameras Actually Worked in Orbit before 2019?
Short question:
Which Cubesat Cameras Actually Worked in Orbit before the year 2019?
Context and explanation:
The very few missions which published at least one image I've found:
Planet Labs ...
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What is a "delta-qualification" program?
In the NASA Independent Review of the Antares Orb-3 failure, they refer to a "delta-qualification program":
As a result, this area of the turbopump is vulnerable to oxygen fire and failures....
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How reliable are pressure fed hypergolic engines?
A fair amount of "what-if" discussion surrounds rocket engine failure at critical points in various crewed missions -- lunar ascent and trans-Earth injection on lunar landing missions, ...
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Could multimode (polymer) optical fiber Gigabit Ethernet be a better choice than WiFi inside future satellites?
In this answer the recent question Are and should satellites use wireless communication internally, rather than cables? it is stated that:
This is actually an open research area and despite ...
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Are and should satellites use wireless communication internally, rather than cables?
Some applications on Earth replace wires with radio communication, standard stuff like Bluetooth. It saves mass and maybe complexity.
Is this done for intra-satellite communication and deep space ...
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Is the Pi really fit for outer space?
Recently, there has been growing interest in using Raspberry Pis in CubeSats. NASA is even in on the trend. But, considering that outer space is pretty harsh on electronics (i.e. radiation and cosmic ...
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What exactly does it mean to human-rate a rocket? As opposed to the escape system?
The escape system is that thin pointy part at the very top of the rocket. It has powerful solid rockets that basically act as an "ejection seat" for the entire crew capsule.
So when we talk about "...
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Most common causes of 21st century launch failures and how often do launches fail?
In this document (Page 7, point 4.3), Garrett Reisman notes that an analysis by Aerospace Corporation showed the most common causes for launch failures between 1980 and 1999. This document shows the ...
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How do we know that Voyager's data is correct?
I was wondering for some time how we know that the scientific data received by the Voyager spacecrafts are correct?
Specifically, I'm wondering about the recent "tsunami-wave" (frequency of ionized ...
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Why are the very reliable rockets Atlas V and Ariane V not rated for human flight?
During the last ten years all 100 or so launches by Atlas V and Ariane V together have been successful. (One Atlas V payload entered too low orbit, but that would hardly have risked the life of a crew)...
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What caused the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle to be unreliable?
The Lunar Landing Training Vehicle was used during the Apollo missions to simulate flying the lunar lander at 1/6th the force of Earth's gravity:
Many sources have indicated a conflict between ...
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Flight testing before manned flights: what are various countries' requirements?
How many technology demonstration/certification unmanned flights does it take to man-rate a spacecraft in the US, Russia, and China?
What Loss-of-Crew probabilities are considered acceptable in those ...
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Why are spacecraft computers obsolete at launch?
One might think that spacecraft would be on the cutting edge of technology. However, when looking over details of spacecraft, it seems their computer systems are often very much behind the times. ...
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