RE: TW and QA

[mlist -at- safenet-inc -dot- com]

Goldstein, Dan note:
 
> The $264 million Genesis space capsule that crashed into the 
> Utah desert
> last month failed because four pencil stub-size gravity 
> switches designed to
> trigger the release of the spacecraft's parachutes were 
> installed backward,
> NASA officials said yesterday.
> 
> Michael G. Ryschkewitsch, chairman of NASA's Mishap 
> Investigation Board,
> said engineers assembling the Genesis probe more than four 
> years ago were
> misled by errors in designs prepared by Bethesda-based 
> Lockheed Martin Corp.
> "The drawings are not correct," Ryschkewitsch said.
> 
> The Genesis setback came five years after the Mars Climate Orbiter
> apparently vanished into space or burned up in the Martian 
> atmosphere after
> Lockheed Martin engineers incorrectly programmed it with 
> English rather than
> metric units.

Well, this is certainly a QA problem, but is it the domain 
of techwriters, or of design engineers and CAD people?

Are there actual assembly manuals that are more detailed 
than just reams of drawings and parts lists? It would seem 
to be the job of the engineer who specifies the parts to 
indicate placement and orientation. It would also seem to 
be the job of those engineers and CAD people to indicate 
units on the specs and assembly drawings.

Maybe somebody who has worked on such a project can describe 
the process and where the TW fits in.

Kevin

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