Story · Lockheed Martin
A $233 Million Weather Satellite Was Standing in a Clean Room When It Fell Over. The Cause Was 24 Bolts Another Crew Had Quietly Borrowed
On September 6, 2003, the nearly complete NOAA-N Prime weather satellite, valued at $233 million, toppled from its handling cart onto a clean-room floor at Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, California. The cause was 24 bolts that a crew from another program had quietly removed from the shared fixture without documentation. A technician supervisor noticed the empty bolt holes before the tilt operation but was dismissed. The satellite slid off the cart and crashed, causing extensive damage. NASA's investigation ran a year. The spacecraft was rebuilt, launched in 2009 as NOAA-19, and operated successfully for over sixteen years, becoming a workhorse of American polar-orbiting weather observation.
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