Never buy spacecraft parts off the back of a truck

Apparently, NASA keeps seeing deals that are too good to turn down. [Link]

NASA officials are dealing with a growing problem of unknowingly buying improperly certified or outright bogus spacecraft parts, the agency's chief said Thursday.

A recent case involved titanium for the Kepler spacecraft, set to launch tonight from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The titanium had been falsely certified by a supplier as having met government standards, NASA spokesman J.D. Harrington said.

"The piece we were specifically concerned with was Kepler's spider hub assembly," Harrington said. "If defective, the mission would be a total loss. After several weeks of material analysis, we found the titanium to be well within the required performance parameters."

NASA's acting administrator, Christopher Scolese, told the House Science and Technology Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics that the issue of falsely certified parts is "becoming a bigger problem for us."

"We find out about it while sitting atop a rocket, or worse, find out about it in space," Scolese said.