cuSetanta

Any particular reason you wouldnt live in the EU? Aside from the hassle of uplifting ones life and such.

Their website has a good few images: https://cavernautes.nxigestatio.org/10-aout.html

There are regulations around de-orbiting your spacecraft at end-of-life, and there are international agreements around weapons in space that refer to the generation of debris.

I don't understand how a lack of regulation would mean something isn't a big problem. It could for sure use much more regulation, as it is such a large problem.

As a spacecraft integration engineer, I assure you it is not.

In-space contactless theories also exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion-beam_shepherd

Pah, good irish Whiskey doesn't need to add dirt to add flavour, leave that to the Scotch!

It will have been tested extensively on ground. They will have identified leaks that are unreported in the media and there are those that have been reported.

I have no idea what went so wrong in this instance though. I am looking forward to reading some sort of report if it ever becomes available. Will be keeping an eye on the NASA Lessons Learned Library (https://llis.nasa.gov/).

A certain leak rate is expected. Helium is a very small atom, and as such is used for leak testing of systems all the time. It is very good at finding gaps in a system.

Obviously the leaks here are a lot more serious. My experience of significant leaks in spacecraft propulsion would lead me to believe that there are welding issues. It can be very difficult to weld some of the materials used in these system, adding to the fact that they are all bound to be very thin walled. Cracks in welds can be hard to find, although I would expect every weld in a system like this to be X-ray inspected, and maybe also penetrant tested.

On the projects I have seen with issues like this, the main culprit has been steps in a procedure being skipped. Inspections signed off despite not being performed. I would highly doubt that this is the case here though, even with Boeings recent track record. Human spaceflight is treated different.

Lived in a small town along the Jagst river for a while, which joins the Neckar at Heilbronn. You get Castle Fatigue fairly quickly with how many castles there are around there. Its hard to care about the 15th castle you pass in as many minutes. And I grew up in Ireland, which itself has a lot of castle dotted around the place.

I have moved around a fair bit in the past decade, and for me the most effective movers I have used have been SendMyBag [1]. They are great for shipping luggage and other reasonably large items. They arrange an DHL pickup and drop, with a lot of flexibility, and their support has been great for me when I needed it.

SendMyBag do ship bikes, but I have mostly used more dedicated bike shipping services, which have been very reliable. SendBike [2] iswho I haved used in the past, but I have also had friends use ShipMyBike [3] successfully in the past. The advantage of these companies is that they will first ship you a box to use, if you dont have one already.

[1] https://www.sendmybag.com/en-gb/ [2] https://sendbike.com/ [3] https://www.shipmybike.com/

I would also add that the 'New Space' scene is going to be much more willing to accept autonomous manufacturing methods. People like ESA are much much more resistant to change, and will take a lot of convincing that it is as good as the slow manual method.

Honestly, as things are looking, I am likely to be leaving the space sector in the near future, so I am not too worried about protecting my job or future on that front. The more accessible space is the better, even if that means people like me become less common.

Space is very slow to change, and traditional harnessing is going anywhere for the time being.

I cannot speak to the newer systems on the market like Starlink, their economies of scale are closer to car manufacture, so for harnessing, they likely do it similar to that industry. Form boards and very repeatable methods for producing a harness that has been well designed into the chassis of the spacecraft to be installed at a specific point. But much of those techniques are relatively unchanged from what I do, just the timing and overall design is more optimised.

Most of the harnessing I have done is very bespoke, and happens at many stages throughout the integration as things are installing, finalised, and what-not.

Apologies, yes the crimping standard specifically is here: https://ecss.nl/standard/ecss-q-st-70-26c-crimping-of-high-r...

18 gauge! Thats the big leagues. We rarely go that big, 22awg is big for us. I salute you sir.

If you have a fish scale, you can see what the retention force is fairly easy. Thats the primary method we use for calibration, albeit with a specific testing hardware.

The main brands I would see would be Glenair, Souriau, and ITT Canon. Once you are paying the the space quality hardware, its all much of a muchness really. Glenair would probably be top dogs in this space.

I have used other manufactures with their own propriety connectors, like Harwin, which are a bit awkward.

The various styles of connectors do matter a bit. Micro-DSUB and Nano-DSUB are a bit of a pain, as you generally get the connector with flying leads, so have to inline (butt) splice.

38999 Circular connectors are great to work with the hardware, but order the right parts is a nightmare as they all have phone number part names.

Crimping is essentially quite a low skill method of connecting wires, when compared to the high skill and experience to do it reliably with solder. I would have a lot of trust in the Boeing crimpers, and I have worked with the SpaceX guys, and they were all very good.

Hahaha oh yeah, plenty.

Recently the Peregrine Lander had wiring issues that led to using the NASA payload to perform the landing. The Vega-C launcher was lost not long ago as two connectors were swapped, connecting two engines in reverse order.

Wiring issues cause a lot of failures that are found on-ground for the most part. But plenty have made it through to fail on orbit.

Havent used them much, but I cant see why they would need to be tinned.

The inspection is primarily visual, to ensure that the stands are well aligned in the crimp, with no protrusions. And to check there is no damage to the wire due to stripping or a mis-crimp.

For under/over crimping, thats mostly taken care of with the tool calibration. And every shift (work day or X crimps) samples are taken to check the tool is still performing well.

Nordlock washers are the best, but they are expensive and a little space inefficient.

As you say, things shift around, promises get made, everything gets delayed and all of a sudden there is no margin left. Unfortunately AIT has to do all of the hardware work with no margin so much of the time.

Secretly I love the power that can give us. You can shout at me all you like in the meetings Mr. ESA engineer, but if the holes don't line up, I cant put a bolt through them. Nothing quite like drilling holes in spacecraft on the launch pad.

At undergraduate level I studied Physics and Astronomy, and then did a research MSc as an optical astronomer, which I hated and drove me away from Physics and Astronomy as a whole.

I spent a few years working in IT Support before deciding to go back to University to study Spacecraft Engineering at Surrey University. Which was a wonderful course, that gave an incredible overview of how one builds a spacecraft. More than most of the Master programs I have seen in the field since, the guys at Surrey had very real experience building quite a few spacecraft, which shone through in the projects and courses.

After that I started a PhD in Southampton that had an industrial sponsor, who eventually ended up offering me a job to build spacecraft before I finished the PhD itself (which was a little complicated in itself), which I took.

After I started with them, I basically apprenticed under an experienced AIT engineer who was coming up to retirement. This is where I really learned a lot. If you ever get the chance to work under someone in the later stages of their career, you really can learn a lot from them.

That was at OHB Sweden, which was an excellent place to see a broad range of things in the industry. I go to work on multiple spacecraft and various stages of development, from proposal, to qualification, to final assembly and test, and to launch as an operations engineer. Really a super experience I am not sure I could have been luckier ending up there.

After that I joined a very small team building the ispace lunar lander, which I am fairly certain will remain the pinnacle of my career. Never have I worked with such a great team on a great project. Everything just worked between us, and a small team really achieved something spectacular (even if it ended up in a crater on the moon).

Now I am working in Ireland for a data acquisition system developed for flight and launch vehicles. Learning the ins-and-outs of ethernet communication and analog circuitry. So far my complete lack of understanding of electronics hasn't been a problem, somehow.

As a spacecraft Assembly, Integration and Test (AIT) Engineer, one of my areas of expertise is harness manufacture and routing. So this naturally involves an awful lot of crimping. I am a certified crimping operator and inspector under the ECSS standards (which go a bit overboard at times in their requirements when compared to the NASA standards).

I am lucky to have built a large amount of harness has/is/will fly on many spacecraft for many customers. There are a lot of unique challenges to crimping for spacecraft harnessing, but in almost all circumstances the main issue has be schedule. Very few project managers that I have worked with, even those who have a lot of experience, plan for enough time to complete the harnessing side of a project.

Depending on the number of crimping configurations that are present in a system, it can take days to calibrate all of the crimp tools before starting. Every crimp needs to be inspected before the heatshrink can be shrunk, and often before the next crimp can be performed if the routing is critical. Routing involves labeling, gluing of tie-bases, bundling of harnessing, and the shielding.... jesus christ the shielding can be a nightmare...

Man I love making harness, honestly one of my favourite things to make. Not sure if anyone cares enough to have questions, but happy to answer them if they exist.

Oh hey! Congrats on the awesome mission!

Love to answer questions if I can.

1. The testing culture is very thorough. I was involved on the propulsion side of things, and as such the safety is taken very seriously, for the safety of the test/production engineers and of course the spacecraft. Propulsion systems are typically integrated in such a way that it is very difficult (nigh impossible at times) to separate them if an issue is found at a later stage, so the testing goes through things with a very fine comb. And even still things can go wrong and can sometimes only be found at a later stage.

From the spacecraft Assembly Integration and Test (AIT) side of things, which is where I work, things are traditional but pragmatic. If a new way can be shown to be more reliable we will adopt it. But not before it is very well understood and characterised. In space, heritage is king, the best way to know if something will work in space is to already know it works in space. So it can take a lot of evidence for a new method/system to be adopted, and when we think we are moving quickly, it probably looks like a glacial pace to others.

During the build and test, we are often so far from the end goal of a spacecraft, its not possible to see the "groundbreaking" aspect of things. Perhaps the payload designers and engineers can see this better.

2. I believe it is named after Euclid, as the father of geometry, as the mission goal was to measure the geometry of the universe. And also yes, go Europe.

3. Christ, accomplished? I love the idea of being accomplished in many ways, but its also a scary concept. Wouldn't want to be having notions of grandeur either. I am very lucky to have worked on many great projects, in many countries, and in a job that I honestly think I am good at and enjoy. But I am always surrounded by so many people who have done so much more, so it mostly feels like I am trying to catch up really.

The science missions really are special to me, I have a background in Astrophysics, and sort of fell into spacecraft engineering. So it is always a real pleasure to get to work on something I understand on a deeper level. But most of the missions I have worked on have not been so special. Most spacecraft are to make money or do something for a military. Its why I have so much time for ESA. Even with their issues (cost, time, etc.), they really feel like they do the important missions for humanity. Nasa and Jaxa too, but they mix in a higher amount of the less special stuff in my experience.

The stress and sacrifice was stressful and sacrificial(?). I wouldnt say it was worth it, or not worth it. Its an odd one. Mostly I have just tried to do cool shit as often as I can, and I have been damn lucky.

Thanks for the kind words though, and I hope I wasn't rambling too much in my response.

I wouldn't want to go into specifics, as it's easy to look like I was slinging mud.

But if you have seen the issues that Starliner has had recently, I would echo the statement from there, that valves are hard. Very hard. Everything to do with pressurised systems in space is hard. But the propulsion team worked it through and are now seeing the fruits of the long hours.

Quite a small part, but yeah, the science missions are always special to be a part of, even if its small.

Always a bit special to see science come from a spacecraft I had the pleasure of working on. Honestly there were a lot of issues during the build of Euclid that I was very glad to not be a part of, but seeing the images coming out of it now is pretty damn impressive.

Hope all of the engineers that struggled to get this mission spacebourne can enjoy!

Where do you source your ACF? Out of the blue, I am faced with needing this tape on the day I first learn of it.