Zurbuchen: 12 JWST Engines Were Damaged by Wrong Chemical Flush
Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · Apr 6, 2021 · at 1:02:06
Former NASA head of science Thomas Zurbuchen details technical mishaps during the assembly of the James Webb Space Telescope's spacecraft bus.
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“They, the engines that are there, 12 engines, were flushed out with the wrong chemical. Instead of actually checking, the person who flushes it out, they tried to clean it. That's exactly what they should do. They need to use the right chemical. Instead of checking with the supplier, a small company in upstate New York who did nothing wrong, instead of checking with them, they flushed with the wrong chemical. Now, the problem is they didn't talk to anybody about it. So the engines got added to the bus. Now I have 12 of those engines to that I now have to cut out. I have to replenish the kind of valves that are kind of seals that were etched away by the wrong solvent, and all that happened as I'm, nobody is focusing on it.”
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