I don't know about the VLS-1, but Tripoli eventually released an internal
statement about the BALLS incidents, copied below.
Official Tripoli Release:
On the last day of BALLS, the Orbital Launch Virginia Tech team (OLVT),
while preparing a two stage, Class 3 rocket had the sustainer motor ignite
while they were mating it to the booster and while it was laying
horizontally on their launch pad. The motor ignited, the sustainer started
skipping across the playa until it catoed a little ways away.
I asked Chris Short to investigate the incident to try to determine the
technical cause for the ignition and any contributory facts surrounding the
ignition. Burl Finkelstein agreed to help. Here are some critical points
they discovered:
1. The original configuration had redundant staging electronics: an RRC3
and a Pico AA1.They did not have a wiring diagram.
2. Several people mentored the OLVT team by advising them on various
subsystem rather than the whole project. The team did not have a single
overall mentor to advise them on the integration of the various
sub-systems. They also didn’t have a dedicated avionics mentor.
3. Their checklist was short and sparse. Although it listed conditions to
verify before launching, it did not describe the steps to achieve those
conditions, such as a safe order for arming or disarming energetic systems.
4. After preparing their Av-bay, the RRC3 gave a sensor error.
5. Following a brief discussion with one of their mentors, they made the
decision to remove the RRC3 and rely entirely on the Pico AA1.
6. When they rewired the staging electronics, they removed the switch which
should have controlled power to the Pico AA1 and instead connected the Pico
AA1 directly to the battery.
7. They had difficulties getting a parachute to fit into its compartment
forward of the avionics bay so they pounded it in with a short 2x4 and
sledge hammer.
8. The upper stage was ignited in one of two ways, either one possibly
caused by the pounding: either the Pico AA1 detected launch or the bulkhead
of the av-bay may have collapsed and somehow connected the power to the
sustainer initiator.
9. The sustainer ignited and flew off the pad horizontally, hit the playa,
dug in and then catoed, sending chunks of propellant flying and snuffing
the motor.
Conclusions:
· Following changes to their staging electronics, students didn’t include a
switch to arm or disarm the rocket’s staging electronics, so the rocket was
armed the entire time the team worked on it. The staging system was
accelerometer based.
· While they prepared the rocket, they handled it aggressively without
realizing what effect that might have on an accelerometer staging system.
· They didn’t know they were supposed to have procedures for arming and
disarming each energetic system.
· The students didn’t understand the concept of a procedural checklist.
· All changes (not just the swapping of the electronics) made on-site to
the staging electronics should have been reviewed by a TAP experienced in
multistage projects.
· The most significant failure has been determined to be that the students
had no overall technical supervision while at BALLS. Student teams like
this must have an experienced mentor who understands all of the subsystems,
can oversee the entire launch preparation process, and who is well aware of
high power rocketry safety procedures used for preparing motors and for
staging. The ideal mentor would be a Tripoli TAP who could actively engage
and oversee the entire process, remaining with the students during the
preparation. BALLS Staff cannot provide that level of supervision for
projects which arrive at BALLS; the student teams must arrange their own
mentor.
· There must be better communication between faculty and launch organizers.
Two weeks before BALLS the faculty advisor and another faculty member who
is a Tripoli TAP told the students that the project could not possibly be
ready to launch. Rather than accepting his decision, the student team
determined that they were going to go to BALLS and launch. Because they
were an independently financed student club, rather than a college
sponsored activity, the advisor didn’t have authority to stop the students.
The faculty advisor didn’t communicate those concerns to the BALLS Launch
Director or any other staff connected to BALLS.
Recommendations:
· Tripoli and the faculties of aerospace programs must develop a mutually
beneficial framework that fosters involvement at all phases of such large
projects and encourages communication of concerns.
o The heads of Aerospace Departments have a meeting at the AIAA SciTech
Conference in January. Tripoli has been invited to discuss this subject
with them and we welcome the opportunity to participate.
o Both Tripoli and Virginia Tech have begun work on more rigorous processes
and have been exchanging ideas.
o In order to be effective, mentors must be more fully engaged.
o Students must do a better job of learning and understanding safety basics
first, before they are ever allowed to engage in “Space Shots” or any other
high power rocketry projects.
On Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 5:47 PM Ben Brockert <wikkit@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Alcântara is in the news because of a new agreement between the US and
Brazil, so I ended up reading about the VLS-1 solid rocket incident
that killed 21 people there. Does anyone have a good reference for
what was found as root cause, or did it never get less vague that the
articles linked from the Wikipedia article?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLS-1_V03
Similarly, was there any formal or informal investigation into the
unintentional stage ignition that happened at Black Rock at one of the
recent events there?