Nasa finds possible sabotage

Nasa finds possible sabotage

CNN

The U.S. space agency NASA on Thursday confirmed it had discovered the apparent sabotage of a noncritical component of the international space station due to be carried up by the space shuttle Endeavour. It launched an investigation after finding cut wires in a piece of computer equipment intended to transfer data from station sensors to the ground, the agency said.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 7/26/2007 by roadgravel]

Just a headline on CNN at this time. Waiting for more to be released.

The CNN TV station report mentioned that NASA believes the sabotage was done by subcontractor.

Maybe some of NASA woes haven't been just mistakes. I wonder if NASA found something in a failure to tip them off.


(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 7/26/2007 by roadgravel]

[edit on 7/26/2007 by roadgravel]

Originally posted by V Kaminski

The system is by a company called INVOCON INC out of Conroe Texas, it's is called an External Wireless Instrumentation System or EWIS, the specific "box" tampered with is called an EWIS NCU or Network Control Unit.

No MSM' have this data online yet. They were content to ask NASA and get no answer. But this is ATS! Membership has it's privileges. We perform the very difficult immediately, the impossible takes only a moment or two longer.

Here's a link to the company who may or may not employ further sub-contractors, Invocon Inc. There's pics and a description of the EWIS NCU which is to be delivered to ISS on STS-118. Launch date Aug 7th 7:02PM EDT nominally.

OK. So what does an EWIS NCU do? Not much really. Got a wireless router? "Like" that in simplest terms.

It's like a "hub" or "switch" that takes strain and vibration data from the various spots on the P5 truss and collects and then sends that data wirelessly en mass to the avionics system and down to the ground when Ku band is available.

These strain guages measure "induced moment" and the avionics sytem discerns "how much" moment and can adjust attitude accoordingly using either the ISS CMG's (Control Moment Gyros), ISS RCS (Reaction Control System) thrusters or Soyez or Progress RCS and when docked STS RCS.

If and when they get it all "combed" and scrubbed it will be pretty complicated.

The box that was "sabotaged" and it's spare are these EWIS NCU modules.

ATS: Access The Scene,

Cheers,

Vic

Do you think this is genuine, or something sinister made up in order to take the heat off the recent story about astronauts being drunk in the shuttle?

Astronauts allowed on the shuttle whilst drunk

All you have to do is mention the word "sabotage" and most people are going to think "terrorist"......which will quickly snowball to the WOT and hey presto, another reason for our troops to stay in Iraq because al qaeda is messing with Americas baby that is NASA.

Maybe a little far fetched, but you can just see it can't you?

CX.

Oh I fully believe that this is the work of a disgruntled Invocon employee or less likely, employees plural.

Maybe Al-Quaeda, most likely not. But hey, who knows? Before today how many Astro's were thought to fly drunk? How many engaged in attempted murder? How about the dude at Johnson who went mental with a revolver? NASA: Not A Sane Agency.

It (the tampering) was discovered back on July 17th or 18th according to Bill Gerstenmaier of NASA, "a week and a half ago" were his words at the Flight Readiness Review news conference yesterday afternoon Thursday 26 July 2007.

I would think they could have done a news release before today? Don't you? It wouldn't have even raised an eyebrow had they done a print only release and used a descriptive word other than "sabotage". Willful destruction of property? Malfeasant non-authorized use of a tool. Like that.

But sabotage sounds so "news-sexy" and dilutes "the Booze news"... Rye and Coke is smoother than straight Whiskey.

NASA-IG "should" release a statement on this tomorrow (actually today now), however they are not compelled to do so as NASA-IG is the data gatekeeper answerable only directly to the Office of the President. They aren't compelled to deal with or answer to anyone in NASA.

This "release" is timed to "soften" the hit fron the "Booze News". But wait while everyone is upset with that headline today and think that's the show... and might hear something on the radio and think it's "yesterday's news".

The real nasty stuff hits tomorrow/today Friday at a 1:00PM EDT JSC news conference.

The nasty Astronaut Health Study is ready, it was the one ordered after the Nowak/Billy-O/Shipman weirdness back in the Spring. The scuttle-butt is, she's a grim old depiction of Astronaut lifestyle challenges... booze, psych problems, risk seeking behaviours and for some who come back from a mission an incredible sense that the best part of one's life is past.

Depression is an issue, families get "trashed"... for some it isn't a problem. Others have big troubles. One of the biggies of the report will be how the Astronaut Psych-profile conspired with "known set answers" to produce the Nowak/Billy-O fiasco. Tragic. "That" behaviour, drinkin' and flying: something's "busted" in the Astronaut Corp and it may not be the Astronaut's fault per se. They may be victims actually.

Tomorrow will be another bad day, congressional hearings could delay flights... but that's a serious issue for another post.

Cheers,

Vic

[edit on 27-7-2007 by V Kaminski]

The time delay in the release could have been arranged to soften the drinking story as speculated. It could also have been to give investigators time to do a bit a research before the culprit was tipped off. Given the value of the contract this company has I bet they could get to the bottom of the personnel problem pretty quick. People sometime do dumb things for dumb reasons.

I once worked in a data center where one of the IBM 360 (mainframe) systems was replaced with a 370. The older system was still around waiting to be moved. A operator in the center decided to start removing various small electronic parts, apparently for use in home projects. It hit the fan when management discovered this. Dumb is as dumb does.