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        In addition to writing this weekly blog on space issues, I write a blog about nuclear issues every week day. In my nuclear blog, I have often talked about the greed and incompetence of some companies in the nuclear industry. Le Creuset is a French Company that sold nuclear components and reactor vessels made of substandard steel for decades before they were caught. I am sad to say that the new space industry is not free from such problems.
        Following the 2009 failure of the launch of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory and the failure of the launch of 2011 launch of the Glory missions, NASA went to their Launch Services Program (LSP) and the Department of Justice (DoJ) to find out what went wrong. At first, NASA had just said that their launch vehicle malfunctioned. Apparently, the nose cones on the Taurus XL rockets used to launch the failed missions had malfunctioned. But NASA kept digging into the cause of the malfunctions.
       The investigators found that the fairings (nose cones) on the rockets did not separate because failure of the aluminum extrusions for a part called the payload fairing rail frangible joint. This part is an explosive separation device that is intended to insure that the fairing separates cleanly from the rocket and falls away from it.
       Sapa Profiles (SP) provided aluminum parts to NASA for the construction of the fairings. The joint investigation of the LSP and the DoJ found that SP had been engaged in fraudulent behavior for almost twenty years. Workers at SP would falsify test numbers or violate testing standards to make it appear as if their poor-quality parts had passed aluminum certification. The company would then present the fake certificates to NASA.
        Apparently, SP wanted to make profits by making substandard parts and faking certification. They used production based bonuses to entice employees to do anything that would speed up production. Millions of dollars of satellite equipment made by SP were so faulty that they were unable to successfully complete their intended missions in space and ultimately sustained damage.
       SP has changed its name to Hydro Extrusion Portland and agreed to pay the U.S. government forty-six million dollars. Unfortunately, this does not even come close to the seven hundred million dollars lost by NASA as a result of the failure of Taurus launches. SP, under its new name will not be allowed to ever do business with the U.S. government again. At least their fraudulent behavior will not endanger any more rocket launches.
       It is interesting to note that the problem at SP is very similar to the problem at Le Creuset. Both companies falsified quality control documentation for their alloys and then used the false documents to support sales and profits. While the damage done by bad SP parts did not have the possibility of the horrible damage that could have been done by failure of Le Creuset parts, they still wasted a lot of money and the failed satellite launches add to the debris in orbit which is already causing problems for the for NASA and private space companies. Hopefully, NASA will be more careful about sourcing its components in the future.