>>14386621Parts are qualified with paperwork and procurement streams, but SLS as a program involves thousands of prime contractors with each several subprime contractors each with many supplies, the degrees of association leads to a chain of custody so fucking complex, it would make Spiderman's head spin. Amos-2 failure with SpaceX was result of a SpaceX relying on a supplier whose standard/quality for their part wasn't as good as spaceX expected it, and it led to a pretty bad failure and set the program back nearly a year. Since then, the lesson that SpaceX learned was that you trust no one if you can do it yourself, so they did. Like Tesla, outside of a few specific things, they source all materials so that it enters in one side of the factory and rocket stages, capsules, fairings, and satellites come out the other. What's horrifying is that they're basically handwaiving the ICPS wet dress testing as a "pass" without doing the test, because the between the lines reads are that if ICPS fails in a major way during wet dress, the SLS rocket is basically delayed at least another 1-2 years, which shifts the Artemis landing timeline out even further, and gives China an even longer runway to establish prestige on the Moon and eventually Mars. Additionally, Starship cannot fly without Artemis due to the HLS agreement. So the entire thing is a shit show.
