There are regulations around de-orbiting your spacecraft at end-of-life, and there are international agreements around weapons in space that refer to the generation of debris.
I don't understand how a lack of regulation would mean something isn't a big problem. It could for sure use much more regulation, as it is such a large problem.
It will have been tested extensively on ground. They will have identified leaks that are unreported in the media and there are those that have been reported.
I have no idea what went so wrong in this instance though. I am looking forward to reading some sort of report if it ever becomes available. Will be keeping an eye on the NASA Lessons Learned Library (https://llis.nasa.gov/).
A certain leak rate is expected. Helium is a very small atom, and as such is used for leak testing of systems all the time. It is very good at finding gaps in a system.
Obviously the leaks here are a lot more serious. My experience of significant leaks in spacecraft propulsion would lead me to believe that there are welding issues. It can be very difficult to weld some of the materials used in these system, adding to the fact that they are all bound to be very thin walled. Cracks in welds can be hard to find, although I would expect every weld in a system like this to be X-ray inspected, and maybe also penetrant tested.
On the projects I have seen with issues like this, the main culprit has been steps in a procedure being skipped. Inspections signed off despite not being performed. I would highly doubt that this is the case here though, even with Boeings recent track record. Human spaceflight is treated different.
Lived in a small town along the Jagst river for a while, which joins the Neckar at Heilbronn. You get Castle Fatigue fairly quickly with how many castles there are around there. Its hard to care about the 15th castle you pass in as many minutes. And I grew up in Ireland, which itself has a lot of castle dotted around the place.
I have moved around a fair bit in the past decade, and for me the most effective movers I have used have been SendMyBag [1]. They are great for shipping luggage and other reasonably large items. They arrange an DHL pickup and drop, with a lot of flexibility, and their support has been great for me when I needed it.
SendMyBag do ship bikes, but I have mostly used more dedicated bike shipping services, which have been very reliable. SendBike [2] iswho I haved used in the past, but I have also had friends use ShipMyBike [3] successfully in the past. The advantage of these companies is that they will first ship you a box to use, if you dont have one already.
I would also add that the 'New Space' scene is going to be much more willing to accept autonomous manufacturing methods. People like ESA are much much more resistant to change, and will take a lot of convincing that it is as good as the slow manual method.
Honestly, as things are looking, I am likely to be leaving the space sector in the near future, so I am not too worried about protecting my job or future on that front. The more accessible space is the better, even if that means people like me become less common.
Space is very slow to change, and traditional harnessing is going anywhere for the time being.
I cannot speak to the newer systems on the market like Starlink, their economies of scale are closer to car manufacture, so for harnessing, they likely do it similar to that industry. Form boards and very repeatable methods for producing a harness that has been well designed into the chassis of the spacecraft to be installed at a specific point. But much of those techniques are relatively unchanged from what I do, just the timing and overall design is more optimised.
Most of the harnessing I have done is very bespoke, and happens at many stages throughout the integration as things are installing, finalised, and what-not.
If you have a fish scale, you can see what the retention force is fairly easy. Thats the primary method we use for calibration, albeit with a specific testing hardware.
The main brands I would see would be Glenair, Souriau, and ITT Canon. Once you are paying the the space quality hardware, its all much of a muchness really. Glenair would probably be top dogs in this space.
I have used other manufactures with their own propriety connectors, like Harwin, which are a bit awkward.
The various styles of connectors do matter a bit. Micro-DSUB and Nano-DSUB are a bit of a pain, as you generally get the connector with flying leads, so have to inline (butt) splice.
38999 Circular connectors are great to work with the hardware, but order the right parts is a nightmare as they all have phone number part names.
Crimping is essentially quite a low skill method of connecting wires, when compared to the high skill and experience to do it reliably with solder. I would have a lot of trust in the Boeing crimpers, and I have worked with the SpaceX guys, and they were all very good.
Recently the Peregrine Lander had wiring issues that led to using the NASA payload to perform the landing. The Vega-C launcher was lost not long ago as two connectors were swapped, connecting two engines in reverse order.
Wiring issues cause a lot of failures that are found on-ground for the most part. But plenty have made it through to fail on orbit.
The inspection is primarily visual, to ensure that the stands are well aligned in the crimp, with no protrusions. And to check there is no damage to the wire due to stripping or a mis-crimp.
For under/over crimping, thats mostly taken care of with the tool calibration. And every shift (work day or X crimps) samples are taken to check the tool is still performing well.