One NASA technician presumably had to have a meeting with HR after an error ended up costing $135,000,000 to fix.
Now don't get me wrong, I've made some mistakes at work before - though luckily none have ever cost $135,000,000 to fix.
If that was the case I don't think you'd be reading my words right now and I'd be having a hard time finding a new job.
Luckily I don't work for NASA, and there's probably a good reason for that. But one technician cost the agency a lot of money.
In 2003 a costly accident derailed the NOAA N-Prime weather satellite project, a $233 million endeavor by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA, per Space.com.
NOAA and NASA contracted aerospace company Lockheed Martin to build the N-Prime satellite, which was being assembled at Lockheed Martin’s California-based manufacturing facility.
During a routine transport maneuver, the satellite suffered extensive damage after it unexpectedly fell from a cart.
According to reports, the incident occurred as workers were moving the satellite from a vertical to a horizontal position, resulting in a one-meter fall onto a concrete floor.
Thankfully, no one was injured in the mishap, but the satellite itself was left severely damaged, with an investigation revealing the cause to be a minor yet critical oversight.
The investigation later determined that the accident stemmed from the satellite missing 24 bolts required to secure it to a Turn-Over Cart (TOC) used in transport.
A NASA report disclosed: “The bolts were removed from the TOC by another project while the cart was in a common staging area, an activity which was not communicated to the NOAA project team.”
The missing bolts went unnoticed during the satellite’s transfer, resulting in its costly fall.
The damage required the replacement of at least 15 percent of the satellite’s components, according to NASA spokesperson Dave Steitz and Lockheed Martin’s Buddy Nelson.
"Lockheed Martin has voluntarily contributed to the rebuild effort all profit previously earned and paid on the contract,” said Nelson at the time.
“The company will undertake the completion of the N-Prime satellite bus on a cost-only basis, forgoing all profits that otherwise might have accrued to Lockheed Martin for this spacecraft bus."
The U.S. government, however, still had to shoulder a significant part of the repair bill.
“And I hope George W. Bush was sitting down when he received the news as they had to pay a staggering $135 million," Steitz told Space.com.
Despite efforts to complete the repairs swiftly, the launch of the N-Prime satellite, later renamed NOAA-19, faced significant delays.
Originally slated for launch in December 2007, the satellite was eventually launched in February 2009.
NOAA-19 went on to become the last in NOAA’s series of polar-orbiting weather satellites, closing out an era in American satellite meteorology.
Talk about a bad day at work.
