The company denies responsibility for the failed launches but admits to fraud in testing results.
By Rachel Weiner Rachel Weiner Local reporter covering federal court in Alexandria, Va. and local court in Arlington and Alexandria. Email Bio Follow April 23 at 7:29 PM A NASA subcontractor will pay a $46 million fine after admitting to falsifying test results in aluminum manufacturing for nearly two decades, the Justice Department said Tuesday.
The company, formerly called Sapa Extrusions and now Hydro Extrusion, has been suspended from government contracting since September 2015. The failed launches occurred in 2009 and 2011; protective covering did not separate as planned and the rockets were too heavy to get into orbit, according to NASA. A subsequent NASA inspector general’s investigation led to Sapa’s aluminum production plant in Portland, where a former lab supervisor admitted in 2017 to falsifying aluminum test results and instructing others to do the same. He is serving a three-year prison sentence.
Employees who raised concerns were ignored, according to the court documents, including a lab technician who in 2014 told the main plant manager he was “dreading” the “daily practice” of being asked to “fake tests, pass failing material or enter fake data.”
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