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Comment by drewg123

7 hours ago

I'd naively assume that the stress of launch (vibration, G-forces) would trigger failures in hardware that had been working on the ground. So I'd expect to see a large-ish number of failures on initial bringup in space.

On the ground vibration testing is a standard part of pre-launch spacecraft testing. This would trigger most (not all) vibration/G-force related failures on the ground rather than at the actual launch.

  • The big question mark is how many failures you cause and catch on the first cycle and how much you're just putting extra wear on the components that pass the test the first time and don't get replaced.