NASA / Perkin-Elmer
Hubble Space Telescope Mirror Flaw
Estimated impact: $50M for COSTAR corrective optics mission; 3 years of degraded science
The $1.5B Hubble Space Telescope launched with a primary mirror ground to the wrong shape (2 micrometers too flat at the edges). The error was caused by a miscalibrated null corrector during manufacturing and was not caught by end-to-end optical testing because NASA cut the test to save $2M.
Decision context
Whether to skip end-to-end optical testing of the Hubble primary mirror to save costs and maintain schedule, relying instead on component-level testing that used the same flawed calibration instrument.
Decision anatomy
Red = risk factor present · Green = protective factor present
Biases present in the decision
★ Primary driver · Severity estimated from bias type and decision outcome
Toxic combinations
Reference class base rates
Across all 143 curated case studies in our library:
Lessons learned
- Skipping end-to-end verification testing to save $2M on a $1.5B system is false economy of the highest order
- Cognitive misering: component tests that showed anomalies were explained away rather than investigated
- Confirmation bias: the test data that would have revealed the flaw was available but was interpreted to confirm the mirror was correct
Source: NASA Hubble Space Telescope Optical Systems Board of Investigation (Allen Board) Report (1990) (Post Mortem)
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Workflows that fire on decisions like NASA / Perkin-Elmer’s
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