cuSetanta

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.