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The failure of the inaugural flight of the Lockheed Martin LMLV launch vehicle has been linked to a cable burn-through on the aft end of the first stage motor and subsequent electrical arching that interfered with an inertial navigation unit, the company said Friday.
The team investigating the Aug. 15 failure determined that burning hydraulic fluid under the skirt of the LMLV's first stage Castor 120 motor was the root cause of the cable burn-through, which ultimately caused the 65-foot long rocket to execute a series of uncommanded maneuvers 80 seconds after it lifted off from its launch site at Vandenburg AFB, Calif.
Lockheed Martin plans no additional demonstrations of the LMLV before its scheduled summer 1996 launching of two payloads--dubbed Lewis and Clark--for customers NASA, CTA and TRW.
We have done "everything humanly possible" to pin down the root cause of the failure and fix the problem, Howard Trudeau, Lockheed...