Re:Not unexpected mid-program issues (Score 1)

I thought the quote from Koenigsmann "It's difficult to explain how this works for so many years and then, suddenly, you see this coming up in the data." was interesting because it could be they've had this problem all along, but now with a significant amount of data (they just did 100 successful launches) they should have a good feel for how the engines run and what is an anomaly. I'm sure that in the start up and main ignition of large rocket engines, a "rattle" like this is hard to detect, but with lots of data that allows tuning of parameters, it starts to become obvious.

Alternate explanation: 3rd party contractor got sloppy.