Project Azorian - documentary on Glomar Explorer

AeroFranz

AeroFranz

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Just a heads up. If you get the chance, watch "Project Azorian". I am by no means a naval fan, but the engineering behind the project is mind boggling and well explained in the 1 hour 42 minutes of the film. Really enjoyed it. For those in the US, it's streaming on Netflix.
 
You can get the DVD cheap. It has great computer graphics and I think they did some outstanding research.

The book is excellent as well.

Two guys have also written an article about the recovery of the satellite vehicle from the bottom of the Pacific in spring 1972 that will be published in the next few months. It's a great story.
 
The Project Azorian documentary is now available on Amazon Prime. I was involved in making the film with Michael White back in the 2005-2009 era.

For the best "insider" story of Azorian, I recommend David Sharp's book: The CIA's Greatest Covert Mission: Inside the Daring Mission to Recover a Nuclear-Armed Soviet Sub

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I remember Discovery Channel’s program where they called it the Jennifer Project.
 
Jennifer was a general overarching control system, named for the deceased daughter of one of the officers. Azorian was the name of the first recovery operation which brought up the bow section. The subsequent follow on was codenamed Matador to go back in the summer of 1975 to retrieve the remaining part, but was cancelled when the story broke and the Soviets were alerted.

The Discovery channels version is way off base in many areas.
 
TJDougherty01 said:
[...]

Another possible factor has been identified was the use of managing steel, which was found to become more brittle at the lower temperatures (29F in seawater at that depth). The plan was to switch to another steel in the subsequent Matador operation to retrieve the lost portion. [...]
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Since reading 'Project Azorian. The CIA and the raising of the K-129' for the first time shortly after it was published, I always wanted to ask - were the 'grabbers' (as they are labeled in 'Project Azorian', on the color insert depicting 'Capture Vehicle') made out of titanium or maraging steel?

'Kelly. More Than My Share of It All', (1989 edition, p. 198) reads: "Lockheed's participation in Glomar was to design the mechanism that would pick up an abandoned Russian submarine sunk to depths of 15,000 feet. Skimping on static testing of the remotely-controlled titanium arms-failure to conduct one last test before the retrieval attempt-resulted in less that 100 percent success."

'Project Azorian', (p.135) reads: "Related to this situation was Lockheed's choice of maraging steel for the capture vehicle's beams and davits. Other steels would have allowed more deflection or 'bending,' permitting a better distribution of the load among the beams. Lockheed had selected maraging steel for those components because it has superior strength and toughness compared to ordinary structural steels. However, maraging steel is also relatively brittle, especially at low temperatures [...] Recently, information on Lockheed's selection of maraging steel has come to light. It has been revealed that the CIA provided a last-minute lift estimate that had increased the target object's weight by 500 tons. Since the capture vehicle's beams and davits were sized and the drawings released, Lockheed had no choice but to select another steel with a higher yield strength and equal ease of machining and workability in order to meet schedules."

Obviously, two versions of the same story. Intuitively, Lockheed using their titanium fabrication know-how for another CIA project in the late '60 seems plausible.
 
patryk said:
TJDougherty01 said:
[...]

Another possible factor has been identified was the use of managing steel, which was found to become more brittle at the lower temperatures (29F in seawater at that depth). The plan was to switch to another steel in the subsequent Matador operation to retrieve the lost portion. [...]
Click to expand...

Since reading 'Project Azorian. The CIA and the raising of the K-129' for the first time shortly after it was published, I always wanted to ask - were the 'grabbers' (as they are labeled in 'Project Azorian', on the color insert depicting 'Capture Vehicle') made out of titanium or maraging steel?

'Kelly. More Than My Share of It All', (1989 edition, p. 198) reads: "Lockheed's participation in Glomar was to design the mechanism that would pick up an abandoned Russian submarine sunk to depths of 15,000 feet. Skimping on static testing of the remotely-controlled titanium arms-failure to conduct one last test before the retrieval attempt-resulted in less that 100 percent success."

'Project Azorian', (p.135) reads: "Related to this situation was Lockheed's choice of maraging steel for the capture vehicle's beams and davits. Other steels would have allowed more deflection or 'bending,' permitting a better distribution of the load among the beams. Lockheed had selected maraging steel for those components because it has superior strength and toughness compared to ordinary structural steels. However, maraging steel is also relatively brittle, especially at low temperatures [...] Recently, information on Lockheed's selection of maraging steel has come to light. It has been revealed that the CIA provided a last-minute lift estimate that had increased the target object's weight by 500 tons. Since the capture vehicle's beams and davits were sized and the drawings released, Lockheed had no choice but to select another steel with a higher yield strength and equal ease of machining and workability in order to meet schedules."

Obviously, two versions of the same story. Intuitively, Lockheed using their titanium fabrication know-how for another CIA project in the late '60 seems plausible.
Click to expand...

That’s really interesting information as I’ve always wondered at the poor material choice the CV arms. Having worked with the materials mentioned, here’s few observations on the choices from my own experience ;-
Maraging steel - AMS6514 is a exceptionally strong steel with about 7-8% yield upon rupture @ peak UTS, normally shattering into several pieces, which resembles broken china. While it can give excellent service it must be employed in just the right way or it will bite. In addition to the well reported cold embrittlement it has a number of other traits which make its use on the CV arms challenging. A key consideration is that it’s very intolerant of surface imperfections. When exposed to salt water it corrodes at an alarming rate;- Red rust corrosion has been observed to form within as little as 15 minutes. Rust forms as a surface cavity that will significantly concentrate stress and therefore act to seed rupture at lower than predicted loads. The same is true for surface scratches or indentation (ie local yielding). Corrosion is normally stopped with surface plating (Cadmium in those days) which itself is protected by paint. The thought of such a sensitive material system being forced/grated between a steel sub hull and potentially rocks shows a large degree of optimism or desperation. Other problems are;- (i) it’s highly intolerant to any local yielding even if there’s no apparent rupture, and it’s noted that this may have occurred just prior to the lift. (ii) in time hydrogen embrittlement in a saltwater environment will significantly compromises its strength. (iii) It’s generally regarded as unweldable so the arms would have been made from a hand forging. Forging Maraging steel is tricky which can take more than one attempt to get the process right. A successful static test informs that its alright.

The Titanium alloy that was around at that time was Ti 6.4. This doesn’t corrode, is less sensitive to surface imperfections, and is easily weldable. However it’s only about 40% of the strength of Maraging Steel and 60% of the weight. So as said above, if faced with a last minute increase in a dead lift load, it makes prefect sense to switch the material, albeit at much, much greater risk.

That would have been a memorable day at the office.
 
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Tom,
Any idea of who made the Model? Great job, especially how it shows the bow seemingly "pushed in" toward the sail rather then imploded / crushed in. Who did the annotation? Excellent idea to help viewers spot the important parts.
Yo! Thanks for getting on the discussion.

Most appropriate timing, this Project Azorian review, what with Russia going down to get our Drone.
 
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August 25, 2023

New Netflix docuseries explores '70s CIA mission with Chester connection​

'Spy Ops' tells the story of Project Azorian, an operation to recover a sunken Soviet submarine. The show premieres Sept. 8​

 
TJDougherty01 said:
The best account of the mission by a senior engineer onboard the Glomar Explorer is David Sharp's book. I highly recommend it!
Here is the Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/CIAs-Greatest-Covert-Operation-Nuclear-Armed/dp/0700619410
and the original publisher link: https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700619412/the-cias-greatest-covert-operation/
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@TJDougherty01, thank you for sharing the link to Mr. Sharp's book. Have just finished reading it - indeed, a 'must read' for anyone interested in the Azorian program.

patryk said:
After all these years, is there any additional information available on the 'CIA's Tiger Team' report mentioned there?
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To answer my own question, found more on 'Tiger Team' and its findings on pages 236-242 of Mr. Sharp's book.

Zoo Tycoon said:
That’s really interesting information as I’ve always wondered at the poor material choice the CV arms.
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From Mr. Sharp's book:

"[...] Parangosky [...] went to his old friend Kelly Johnson, president of the Lockheed Skunk Works in Burbank, for assistance. Kelly agreed that the [initial LMSC's] design [of capture vehicle] was too complex for the intended application and sent one of his most experienced mechanical engineers, Henry Coombs [spelling from the book], to work with LMSC team on the new approach.

The collaboration of LMSC and Skunk Works resulted in a greatly simplified concept. The space-frame structure was thrown out and replaced with a single massive weldment as the spine, or strongback, of the capture vehicle. HY-100 steel was specified in the order to reduce cost and simplify the construction. (Simplifying the welded construction was of considerable importance, since the strongback was at that time the largest known HY-100 weldment in the world.)" p. 94-95

"[...] The Tiger Teams's findings that cracked beams and davits were the direct cause of the breakaway only confirmed what many had suspected. The more important issue, though, was identification of all the technical factors that might have contributed to the tine failures. There was no single, identified cause for the fracturing. Rather, there appeared to be a number of problems experienced during the mission that led to the eventual failures. The contractors and the Tiger Team came up with the following list of technical issues that might have contributed to the breakage.

Material Selection for the Beams and Davits
The selection of Maraging 200 steel for the beams and davits had never been universally popular. At the time of the capture vehicle design, there was not a very large database on the performance of the steel in extreme environments (such as freezing temperatures and very high pressures). Lockheed, however, had felt strongly that it was important to take advantage of the high-tensile-strength material in order to keep the weight of the capture vehicle within reasonable limits. The metallurgy team doing the postmission analysis was divided on the extent to which the material selection was responsible for the failures. They all agreed that Maraging 200 was known to be subject to hydrogen embrittlement (a phenomenon that results in cracking of some metals after exposure to atomic hydrogen), and that the cold temperatures and high water pressures might have exacerbated that susceptibility. But were the tine failures during the ascent due to the material selection? Or were the problems caused by unplanned-for events that occurred during the bottom operations?

The Lockheed designers contended that the Maraging 200 would have been entirely satisfactory material selection if the procedures for driving the tines under the target had been less aggressive, and if the tines hadn't been exposed to compressive and twisting loads while sitting on the ocean bottom for twenty hours waiting for completion of heave compensator repairs. [...]" p. 238

"Although in hindsight the Maraging 200 steel might not have been the best choice for construction of the tines, it's problematical whether any other choice of steel would have survived the unplanned-for conditions that the CV and to endure for nearly twenty hours without similar fracture problems." p. 241
 

I recently came across secret projects and the discussion about Project Azorian and the loss of the K-129. It is without doubt the best exchange of ideas I have come across but I have one minor quibble. Captain Newman’s background says he is the last living member of the CIA’s Project Azorian Hughes Glomar Explorer team. From 1970 to 1975 I was the Chief Marine Geologist on the Project. Most of what I did was helping to create and maintain the seabed mining cover, but I was also the photographer with Team B that continued to exploit the K-129 while the Explorer was anchored off Lahaina.​

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