OSP Fairing Project

In March 1998, I was named technical lead of a project to develop a new fairing for a launch vehicle. Throughout the course of the program, I will be writing about the project on this site. The series will include at least one major article per month, plus shorter weekly updates.

By following along with this series, you can learn what it's like to design a major aerospace product from scratch. I will be covering all aspects of the project: design, analysis, manufacturing, testing, assembly, management, scheduling, and politics. Because I am writing in real time, I don't know how the project will turn out in advance. You'll be able to read about both success and failures, as well as solutions to the problems that will crop up.

I hope to include enough technical details to keep even seasoned engineers interested. However, I am somewhat limited by proprietary information agreements. If you ever want me to expand on a specific topic, please write me and I'll see what I can do.

Finally, for licensing reasons, many of the figures in this series are stored on non-Mining Company servers. If you view such a figure, simply press your browser's Back button to return to the article.

Chronological Index

Introduction (03/30/98): Overview of the project and a listing of development team members.

Program PDR (04/06/98): Description of the general design review process and a summary of the OSP Program PDR.

Weekly Update (04/13/98): IML definition received; quotes solicited for flat plate tooling.

Weekly Update (04/20/98): Vehicle name chosen; prototype tooling moving along; preliminary design stalled.

Tooling and Schedule (04/27/98): Manufacture of the development tooling begins; schedule options for meeting delivery dates.

Weekly Update (05/04/98): A slow week; brief updates on tooling, schedule, and design.

Better Use Dynamite (05/18/98): Manufacture of the development tooling hits a major snag.

Advanced Grid Structures (05/25/98): Guest author and inventor Dr. Steven Huybrechts explains the manufacturing method to be used for the OSP fairing.

Development Tooling Update (06/03/98): More problems with the flat panel tooling, plus some valuable lessons learned.

Weekly Update (06/10/98): A slip in the launch schedule brings us some much needed relief.

Weekly Update (06/24/98): Weight sensitivity study; first flat panel completed.

Grid Optimization (07/06/98): Finding a workable grid pattern for the OSP fairing takes a bit of work. The result is somewhat surprising.

Weekly Update (07/27/98): Preliminary design is stalled; development tooling is waiting on contracts.

Weekly Update (09/01/98): Design work might ramp up again soon; a miscalculation in loads lowers the weight.