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Challenger Disaster

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Challenger case study analysis
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1. Space shuttle challenger disaster leads to the death of its crew members 7. 2. NASA’S organizational culture and decision making process is a key contributing factor of the accident. 3. NASA managers had known contractor Morton Thiokol’s design of the SRB contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the o-rings since 1977. 4. NASA disregarded warnings from engineers about the dangers of launching posted by the low temperature of that morning. 5. The ROGER”S commission offered NASA 9 recommendations that were to be implemented before shuttle flight resumed. 6. The o-rings had no test data to support any expectation of successful launch in such conditions. 7. Challenger was originally set to launch from Kennedy space center in Florida at 2:42 EST Jan 22. 8. Launch was delayed 1st to Jan 23 then 2nd to Jan 24, 3rd to Jan 25 due the bad weather at the TAL site in Senegal. NASA decided to use Casablanca as TAL site but it wasn’t equipped for night landings so they had to move it to the morning to Florida. 4th to Jan 27 9:37 as of unaccepted weather at Kennedy space center and5th to Jan 28 as by problems with the exterior access hatch. 9. Delayed 5 times shows lack of good decision making and management of NASA’s managers. 10. Morton Thiokol is the contractor responsible for the construction and maintenance of the shuttle’s SRBs. 11. Rockwell international is the shuttle’s prime contractor. 12. Jan 28th forecast predicted an unusual cold morning with temps close to 31f (-1 c) , that’s the minimum temp. Permitted for launch. 13. Roger Boisjoly and some engineers of Morton Thiokol expressed their concern about the effect of the temp. on the resilience of the o-rings.

14. Thiokol engineers argued that if the o-rings were colder than 53f (12 c) , they didn’t have enough

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