Nasa's Challenger Tragedy Research Paper
NASA’s Challenger Tragedy
January 28, 1986 was marked as one of the darkest day of NASA’s history when Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff killing all seven crew members. It was NASA’s 25th, mission but unfortunately not a successful one. Challenger’s disaster appeared in a period of small budgets, workforce and a need for the space agency to confirm its successfully shuttle program. Pressures settled because of the need to meet client obligations, which transformed into a requirement to launch a certain number of flights per year at the scheduled time.
NASA was a government agency formed in 1958, a year after the launch of Soviet Union’s Sputnik. At the beginning NASA was created as a civilian space exploration …show more content…
programs but at actually it was an expression of a military culture having one goal to institute the U.S. dominance against the Soviet Union in space. In March 1970 President Nixon approved the Space Transportation System or Shuttle Program. The concept of the program was to build a fleet of reusable spacecraft and to service the yet-to-be-developed space station. To maintain Shuttle Program funding from Congress, NASA was required to make a series of major reductions. At the beginning, fronting an extremely controlled budget, NASA forfeited the investigation and development essential to produce a truly returnable shuttle. Instead they accepted a design which was only partially reusable, eliminating one of the structures which made the shuttle attractive in the first place. Solid rocket boosters (SRB’s) were used instead of safer liquid fueled boosters since they required a much smaller research and development effort. Various other design changes were made to reduce the level of research and development required.
In 1973 Morton-Thiokol a company from Utah won the contract of NASA to design and build the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRB). In 1977 the team of engineers from Morton-Thiokol, discovered at the analysis of a pre-flight hydrobust test a “joint rotation” which required a lot of pressure on the O-rings to seal the joint properly. Meanwhile, NASA and the team of engineers observed two conditions: erosion of the primary O-ring and blow-by, which will lower the integrity of the joint seal. In November 1982, the erosion of the primary O-ring on STS-5 flight pressed NASA to increase the critical rating of the primary O-ring, but this change was not communicated with Morton-Thiokol’s engineering team. Despite of the higher critically rating, NASA agreed with the expanding risk, rather than grounding the entire fleet of shuttles.
In March 1985, Roger Boisjoly a 27 years experienced engineer in booster joints seal, from Morton discovered a seal failure at the launch of flight 51-B, where both O-rings in the nozzle joint eroded. A preliminary test performed at Thiokol demonstrated that the O-rings do not work well in a low temperature. In august 1985, the team from Thiokol warned NASA about all joint seal problems, but their result was rejected by NASA who considered not being a big issue to determine grounding the entire fleet and advised the engineers from Thiokol to fix it as they go along.
Late January 1986, Challenger’s mission registered several delays because of the cold weather. NASA held many meetings to discuss the low temperature performance of the boosters before the decision to launch the Challenger was taken. With a night before the Challenger was launched, during a teleconference and Telefax systems that connected Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Morton-Thiokol in Utah and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville Alabama, several engineers and managers discussed if it was safe to launch the shuttle at a predicted temperature of 19 degrees, temperature that was never experienced before.
Engineers involved in the presentation Roger Boisjoly and his supervisor Arnie Thompson point out the meeting as another opportunity to express their worries about the boosters, but they failed by not having enough time to prepare their records and documents.
The discussion begun with the O-rings issue that could not resist at low temperatures so that the primary and secondary seals would not function properly. Their advice was not to launch if the temperature was below 53°F, the lowest temperature tested by the O-rings on a previous mission. Morton-Thiokol engineers argued for an hour during the presentation about the cold weather and the effect that it could create problems of joint rotation and delayed O-ring seating. After the technical presentation, engineer Bob Lund presented his recommendations, focusing on the low temperature data that Morton-Thiokol had regarding the effects of cold on the operative boosters, stating that, he boosters had experienced O-ring erosion at this temperature. The engineers had no low temperature data below 53°F to present, except Boisjoly’s personal observation and they failed to demonstrate with data that it was unsafe to launch at lower than 53 degrees. He read his recommendations and commented that the predicted temperatures for the morning’s launch was outside the data base and NASA should avoid starting the maneuver and so temperature could increase and the O-ring temperature to at least
53°F.
The night before the launch of the Challenger the policy was imprecise. Morton- Thiokol had stated to NASA that it was dangerous to launch under the current weather conditions because of the cold weather. Until that point no contractor had the courage to tell NASA not to launch or what to do considering the NASA’s culture and suddenly everything became doubtful of the announcement by Morton-Thiokol engineers and interrogated why they were bringing up the safety issues of the O-rings.
The arguing and tension discussion lasted several minutes before Joe Kilminster was asked for his opinion. He was part of the Morton-Thiokol management with a wide-ranging engineering background. A few managers from NASA expressed their reservations about the recommendations, and Joe Kilminster suggested for a short meeting with the microphone off, so the engineers from Morton-Thiokol could reanalyze their position and documentation. Boisjoly and Thompson tried to influence their senior managers to focus on their original decision of not to launch. A senior executive at Morton-Thiokol, made a comment about a management decision which was a necessity, and the data presented to them showed no correlation between temperature and the blow-by gasses which eroded the O-rings in previous missions.
This policy was distorted the night before the launch of the Challenger, and the group of engineers from Morton-Thiokol had warned NASA that it was dangerous to launch under the current weather conditions because of the cold weather. NASA was never told not to launch and they became suddenly suspicious about Morton-Thiokol’s engineers announcement, and started asking questions why they were bringing up the safety issues of the O-rings. The data presented to NASA revealed no relationship between temperature and blow-by gasses which eroded the O-rings in previous missions. “Our charts may be inconclusive, our data insufficient, but everything we do shows we’ll be safer launching at 53 degrees or above”. At the end, Jerry Mason Senior Vice President gave up in presenting more arguments and asked Robert Lund to take a decision from a management point of view, not from an engineering one. “It’s time to make a decision. Bob, take off your engineer’s hat and put your management hat”. After that moment, Kilminster changed the previous recommendation with a new one where they agreed with starting the procedure for launching.
Because NASA expressed pressure to keep their schedule to launch despite of all warnings, they accepted the last recommendation of MT engineers, when manager Stanley Reinartz from Marshall Space Flight Center asked for the last time if anybody has a different opinion but nobody said anything, the silence was taken as an agreement by both organizations. Even if Thiokol faxed NASA prior the teleconference several graphs, charts and pictures to back up their request the evident correlation between the low temperatures effects on the O-rings their conclusion were not considered being an issue to launch.
Organizations and staff members involved in the teleconference on January 27 1986, just a few hours before Space Shuttle Challenger was launched.
NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration at Marshall Space Flight Center Larry Mulloy –Solid Rocket Booster Manager Project
Stanley Reinartz- Shuttle Projects Manager Office
Morton-Thiokol – Contracted by NASA to build the solid rocket booster Morton-Thiokol was the subcontractor directly responsible for the development of the SRB “O” rings. Bob Lund – Morton-Thiokol Vice President in engineering.
Roger Boisjoly – Morton-Thiokol 27 year experienced engineer at Seal Task Force who mentioned several times the issues with the low temperature that could affect the O-rings.
Arnie Thompson – Morton-Thiokol Supervisor, Rocket Motor Cases engineer.
Joe Kilminster –Vice President, Space Booster Programs Jerry Mason – Senior Vice President , Wasatch Operations who encouraged Bob Lund to reconsider his decision not to approve the launch.
January 28, 1986 was marked as one of the darkest day of NASA’s history when Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff killing all seven crew members. It was NASA’s 25th, mission but unfortunately not a successful one. Challenger’s disaster appeared in a period of small budgets, workforce and a need for the space agency to confirm its successfully shuttle program. Pressures settled because of the need to meet client obligations, which transformed into a requirement to launch a certain number of flights per year at the scheduled time.
NASA was a government agency formed in 1958, a year after the launch of Soviet Union’s Sputnik. At the beginning NASA was created as a civilian space exploration …show more content…
programs but at actually it was an expression of a military culture having one goal to institute the U.S. dominance against the Soviet Union in space. In March 1970 President Nixon approved the Space Transportation System or Shuttle Program. The concept of the program was to build a fleet of reusable spacecraft and to service the yet-to-be-developed space station. To maintain Shuttle Program funding from Congress, NASA was required to make a series of major reductions. At the beginning, fronting an extremely controlled budget, NASA forfeited the investigation and development essential to produce a truly returnable shuttle. Instead they accepted a design which was only partially reusable, eliminating one of the structures which made the shuttle attractive in the first place. Solid rocket boosters (SRB’s) were used instead of safer liquid fueled boosters since they required a much smaller research and development effort. Various other design changes were made to reduce the level of research and development required.
In 1973 Morton-Thiokol a company from Utah won the contract of NASA to design and build the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRB). In 1977 the team of engineers from Morton-Thiokol, discovered at the analysis of a pre-flight hydrobust test a “joint rotation” which required a lot of pressure on the O-rings to seal the joint properly. Meanwhile, NASA and the team of engineers observed two conditions: erosion of the primary O-ring and blow-by, which will lower the integrity of the joint seal. In November 1982, the erosion of the primary O-ring on STS-5 flight pressed NASA to increase the critical rating of the primary O-ring, but this change was not communicated with Morton-Thiokol’s engineering team. Despite of the higher critically rating, NASA agreed with the expanding risk, rather than grounding the entire fleet of shuttles.
In March 1985, Roger Boisjoly a 27 years experienced engineer in booster joints seal, from Morton discovered a seal failure at the launch of flight 51-B, where both O-rings in the nozzle joint eroded. A preliminary test performed at Thiokol demonstrated that the O-rings do not work well in a low temperature. In august 1985, the team from Thiokol warned NASA about all joint seal problems, but their result was rejected by NASA who considered not being a big issue to determine grounding the entire fleet and advised the engineers from Thiokol to fix it as they go along.
Late January 1986, Challenger’s mission registered several delays because of the cold weather. NASA held many meetings to discuss the low temperature performance of the boosters before the decision to launch the Challenger was taken. With a night before the Challenger was launched, during a teleconference and Telefax systems that connected Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Morton-Thiokol in Utah and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville Alabama, several engineers and managers discussed if it was safe to launch the shuttle at a predicted temperature of 19 degrees, temperature that was never experienced before.
Engineers involved in the presentation Roger Boisjoly and his supervisor Arnie Thompson point out the meeting as another opportunity to express their worries about the boosters, but they failed by not having enough time to prepare their records and documents.
The discussion begun with the O-rings issue that could not resist at low temperatures so that the primary and secondary seals would not function properly. Their advice was not to launch if the temperature was below 53°F, the lowest temperature tested by the O-rings on a previous mission. Morton-Thiokol engineers argued for an hour during the presentation about the cold weather and the effect that it could create problems of joint rotation and delayed O-ring seating. After the technical presentation, engineer Bob Lund presented his recommendations, focusing on the low temperature data that Morton-Thiokol had regarding the effects of cold on the operative boosters, stating that, he boosters had experienced O-ring erosion at this temperature. The engineers had no low temperature data below 53°F to present, except Boisjoly’s personal observation and they failed to demonstrate with data that it was unsafe to launch at lower than 53 degrees. He read his recommendations and commented that the predicted temperatures for the morning’s launch was outside the data base and NASA should avoid starting the maneuver and so temperature could increase and the O-ring temperature to at least
53°F.
The night before the launch of the Challenger the policy was imprecise. Morton- Thiokol had stated to NASA that it was dangerous to launch under the current weather conditions because of the cold weather. Until that point no contractor had the courage to tell NASA not to launch or what to do considering the NASA’s culture and suddenly everything became doubtful of the announcement by Morton-Thiokol engineers and interrogated why they were bringing up the safety issues of the O-rings.
The arguing and tension discussion lasted several minutes before Joe Kilminster was asked for his opinion. He was part of the Morton-Thiokol management with a wide-ranging engineering background. A few managers from NASA expressed their reservations about the recommendations, and Joe Kilminster suggested for a short meeting with the microphone off, so the engineers from Morton-Thiokol could reanalyze their position and documentation. Boisjoly and Thompson tried to influence their senior managers to focus on their original decision of not to launch. A senior executive at Morton-Thiokol, made a comment about a management decision which was a necessity, and the data presented to them showed no correlation between temperature and the blow-by gasses which eroded the O-rings in previous missions.
This policy was distorted the night before the launch of the Challenger, and the group of engineers from Morton-Thiokol had warned NASA that it was dangerous to launch under the current weather conditions because of the cold weather. NASA was never told not to launch and they became suddenly suspicious about Morton-Thiokol’s engineers announcement, and started asking questions why they were bringing up the safety issues of the O-rings. The data presented to NASA revealed no relationship between temperature and blow-by gasses which eroded the O-rings in previous missions. “Our charts may be inconclusive, our data insufficient, but everything we do shows we’ll be safer launching at 53 degrees or above”. At the end, Jerry Mason Senior Vice President gave up in presenting more arguments and asked Robert Lund to take a decision from a management point of view, not from an engineering one. “It’s time to make a decision. Bob, take off your engineer’s hat and put your management hat”. After that moment, Kilminster changed the previous recommendation with a new one where they agreed with starting the procedure for launching.
Because NASA expressed pressure to keep their schedule to launch despite of all warnings, they accepted the last recommendation of MT engineers, when manager Stanley Reinartz from Marshall Space Flight Center asked for the last time if anybody has a different opinion but nobody said anything, the silence was taken as an agreement by both organizations. Even if Thiokol faxed NASA prior the teleconference several graphs, charts and pictures to back up their request the evident correlation between the low temperatures effects on the O-rings their conclusion were not considered being an issue to launch.
Organizations and staff members involved in the teleconference on January 27 1986, just a few hours before Space Shuttle Challenger was launched.
NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration at Marshall Space Flight Center Larry Mulloy –Solid Rocket Booster Manager Project
Stanley Reinartz- Shuttle Projects Manager Office
Morton-Thiokol – Contracted by NASA to build the solid rocket booster Morton-Thiokol was the subcontractor directly responsible for the development of the SRB “O” rings. Bob Lund – Morton-Thiokol Vice President in engineering.
Roger Boisjoly – Morton-Thiokol 27 year experienced engineer at Seal Task Force who mentioned several times the issues with the low temperature that could affect the O-rings.
Arnie Thompson – Morton-Thiokol Supervisor, Rocket Motor Cases engineer.
Joe Kilminster –Vice President, Space Booster Programs Jerry Mason – Senior Vice President , Wasatch Operations who encouraged Bob Lund to reconsider his decision not to approve the launch.