Project Atlas Hybrid Rocket Engine; Automation Without Alignment: The Actor-Network Behind the Crash of Lion Air Flight 610

Aerospace Engineering Capstone Team 3 at the University of Virginia (UVA), composed of 19 students, developed the ATLAS hybrid rocket engine to make progress toward better characterizing the performance of hybrids at low cost. ATLAS is an H-class hybrid rocket engine that was developed for static testing of additively manufactured performance-enhancing components. The engine was designed for multiphase oxidizer and 3D-printed solid fuel grain propellants. A complete modular test stand with blast shields was designed to support a static testing campaign. This test stand supported an oxidizer supply system, data acquisition, and control test for accurate data collection during tests. The engine was then tested through hydrostatic, cold flow, and hot fire test campaigns. Fifteen different fuel grain geometries were designed for performance testing, as well as three different ignition systems. The injection systems were 3D-printed using high-temperature resistant resin, a design entirely unique within the hybrid community, which allows for optimized geometries at extremely low cost and difficulty in manufacturing. It is remotely operable and capable of gathering thrust, temperature, pressure, and infrared video feed data thanks to its data acquisition (DAQ) and control system. The engine was designed to fire for five seconds at a time, producing 14.4 pounds of thrust with a chamber pressure of 500 psi and a temperature of 3300 K. The team passed the engine through hydrostatic and cold flow test campaigns. The engine was destroyed during the hot fire test campaign due to a clogged nozzle and was rebuilt within a week. The current design is awaiting approval for testing.

At 6:20 AM on October 29th, 2018, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 operating as Lion Air Flight 610 departed from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta bound for Depati Amir Airport in Pangkal Pinang City. Thirteen minutes later, the flight tragically crashed into the Java Sea, taking the lives of all 189 individuals on board (Komite Nasional Keselamatan Transportasi [KNKT], 2019). The Boeing 737 MAX’s safety depended not just on advanced avionics or aerodynamic refinements but also on how these technologies were introduced, explained, authorized, and maintained within a global aviation system. The interplay of faulty MCAS design, lack of regulatory scrutiny, insufficient pilot training, and Boeing’s cost-driven culture, taken together, created conditions for the tragedy to occur. First, MCAS transformed a structural pitch-up problem into software, but once stripped of redundancy and hidden from manuals, it became a black box whose behavior no longer intersected with the knowledge or authority of pilots and regulators. Second, the FAA’s increased opting in favor of delegation and shrinking engineering faculty shifted the agency from an independent scrutinizer to a scheduling partner, allowing for critical design changes to be passed through the paperwork loop unchallenged. Third, Level B “differences” training met Boeing’s promise of continuity but deprived flight crews of the wherewithal needed to diagnose automation they had never heard of, let alone rehearsed in a simulator. Fourth, an earnings-driven corporate culture translated every technical trade-off into a cost or timeline variable, ensuring that dissent, redundancy, and simulator bills lost out to speed and margin.

Our technical project concerned the design, building, and testing of a hybrid rocket motor that is safe, innovative, and accessible, countering the issues seen in large aerospace firms today. In the creation of the rocket, we used modern manufacturing methods, easily accessible materials, and advanced safety measures to create and optimize the motor design for efficiency, education, and mitigated risk. However, because this project encompassed a more extensive network of competing technical, social, economic, and conceptual factors, understanding their interplay was vital to the project’s overall success. The crash of Lion Air Flight 610 showed that a complex network of human and non-human actors determines a project's success. My STS project uses Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to examine how this network affected the compromise of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft used for the flight. Because the challenge of balancing innovation with accessibility is sociotechnical in nature, it requires attending to both its technical and social aspects to accomplish successfully. In what follows, I set out on a technical project with my team aimed at developing a hybrid rocket motor using accessible and safe design principles, as well as an STS project for examining the degradation of the Boeing 737 MAX actor-network and Boeing's compromise of safety at the time of the Lion Air Flight 610 crash. In doing so, my team and I will be able to better tackle the sociotechnical challenge at hand.