...Challenger case study analysis Facts 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. ...
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...The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster American History Semester 2 Term Paper By: Dhiren Reddy The space shuttle Challenger disaster was a very important event in our countries history. It was a terrible accident which gave it kind of infamy of being a failed space mission. People see an explosion and don’t think twice about the tremendous amount of work, over the years, and the number of aspects that went in to the mission. These included the extreme pre-launch training that consisted of strenuous physical exercises and hundreds of hours of reading and studying, the work NASA put in after the explosion to prevent any incident of this kind from happening again, and finally what actually took place on launch day. All of these thing were...
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...Re: Case Study Memorandum Subject: Roger Boisjoly and the Challenger Disaster: Disloyal Employee or Courageous Whistle-Blower? Facts: The focus of this case study is on Roger Boisjoly's attempt to avert the launch of the Challenger and his act of employee loyalty to set the record straight despite the negative outcome. Boisjoly was employed with Morton Thiokol Inc. as an engineer and an expert in rockets. During an examination of the Challenger (STS 61-C), Biosjoly and the Seal Erosion Task Force discovered a problem with the hot-gas blowby or ignited fuel which came from joint leaks and the O-ring convincing the team that it was not safe to launch until the problem was fixed. Boisjoly notified his boss in writing of what was found. Despite what Boisjoly informed his boss, NASA went ahead and did the launch. Predictions came true when a catastrophic explosion resulted from the failed O-ring seals and the Challenger and the crew was lost. President Reagan appointed a commission to look into the devastation and found that the interviews given by senior management of Morton Thiokol and Boisjoly and a fellow engineer contradicted eachother which lead Boisjoly to believe that senior management was trying to cover up what had happened. Boisjoly and his fellow coworker were reprimanded for telling the truth about what really happened. Eventually, Boisjoly resigned from his position due to psychological strain and a hostile working environment. Ethical Issues: Disloyal...
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...Risk Quantification 7. How did NASA decide what is or is not an acceptable risk? NASA identified and evaluated hazards through a formalized hazard reduction process as described in the NASA Handbook, NHB5300.4. The process required that hazards be determined for probability and credibility. In order to ensure that the standards within NHB5300.4 were adhered to, a Senior Safety Review Board was established for overseeing the risk assessment process. The process allowed for a certain amount of risk to be allowed as long as it was acceptable. To determine whether or not a hazard was an acceptable risk, NASA used a Safety Classification System, which was a qualitative system rather than a quantitative system. This was due to the high cost associated with gathering enough data to be able to use a quantitative system. A quantitative system would also have created additional paperwork due to the technical requirements for a space shuttle. However, a quantitative system should have been developed and utilized. The risk classification system NASA used consisted of five levels, as seen below. 8. What was NASA’s risk response plan? NASA was able to transfer and reduce some of its risk, however, due to the scope of the program, they were also forced to retain some of the risk. One key aspect to this approach to risk response is the need for a solid control plan. NASA did not have a complete control plan, which cased a lot of issues as the shuttle development program...
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...1- Abdulla Abdulrahman U00018181 2- Mohammad HHH U00018254 3- Majid Ahmed U00014400 4- Saud Al Qassimi U00018888 5- Abdulla Al-nuaimi U00031505 Introduction:- In the business world, communication is a major thing. And this communication is traded in the form of messages. Messages can be oral or non-oral like written and typed messages. There are two types of messages, first is positive and the second is negative. In our project we are going to talk about the second type which is the negative messages. We are not only going to talk about the negative messages itself. We will talk about the strategies of delivering bad or negative news. Besides, we will give some solutions and methods to make the bad news seem good or accepted. What is the negative messages ? What are the strategies or plans to deliver the negative news or messages? What is the direct plan and the indirect plan and when should we use one of them ? And, how to deliver a bad news ? All of these wonderings and questions will be answered and clarified in this report. “ To be agreeable while disagreeing – that’s an art “ Malcolm Forbes Negative Messages:- Negative message is delivering bad news or any message to which the reader and listener or any type of receivers will have an unpleasant emotional reaction. A message is classified as negative when: * The main point is negative. * The receiver will be disappointed or angry. Besides,...
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...Ques:1 Vision and mission statements provide information about the organization? What are they? How should they be developed and used? Ans: The term “strategic planning” is defined as process of an organization that clearly defines its strategy, or direction and making decisions on allocating its resources for proper planning. These two statements Mission statement and Vision statement clearly and concisely convey the direction of the organization. The Mission statement identifies a starting point or current state of business, but a Vision statement is necessary to determine what direction should be pursued. These help to communicate intentions and motivate team or organization to have a successful and common vision of the future. Mission statement: its development and use:- It defines the purpose of the organization and their primary objectives. The main functional point is internal and there is an involvement of leadership team and stakeholders. A perfect mission statement should determine why organization exists and what will achieve in future. Every organization has its own unique Mission statement. It should be easy to understand and should be simple so that every new employee could use it frequently. Generally mission statement of organization answer keys questions: * Purpose of the organization * Business of the organization * The value of organization Vision statement: its development and use:- It also defines the purpose of an organization but at the...
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...You may have heard of the Challenger explosion but have you heard of the Columbia disaster. This disaster happened due to human error and cost the lives of 7 people. This disaster changed the course of spaceflight for the future because of how bad it was. The first main key moment is on January 16 ,2003 space shuttle Columbia took off from Kennedy Space Center. 81 seconds into the flight a piece of insulating foam from the bipod attaching Columbia to the external tank broke off and hit Columbia’s left wing at around 540 mph and went unnoticed by NASA. NASA then informed the Columbia crew once they found out and said it was nothing to worry about. The second key moment of this event is while they were in space for sixteen days...
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...must perform under a standard of professional behavior that requires adherence to the highest principles of ethical conduct” (NSPE). Corporations have ethical responsibilities to their employees, customers and the communities they reside, as do the employees. The role of responsibility in the Challenger disaster...
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...The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster was a preventable disaster that NASA tried to cover up by calling it a mysterious accident. However, two men had the courage to bring the real true story to the eyes of the public and it is to Richard Cook and Roger Boisjoly to whom we are thankful. Many lessons can be learned from this disaster to help prevent further disasters and to improve on organizations ethics. One of the many key topics behind the Challenger disaster is the organizational culture. One of the aspects of an organizational culture is the observable culture of an organization that is what one sees and hears when walking around an organization. There are four parts to the observable culture, stories, heroes, rites and rituals and symbols. The first one is stories, which is tales told among an organization’s members. In the Challenger Space Shuttle incident there were mainly four organizations thrown together to form one, Morton Thiokol, Marshall Space Flight Center, Johnson Space Center and NASA Headquarters. All of these organizations had the same type of stories to be told. At Morton Thiokol, they talked about their product and their big deal, which they received from NASA. At NASA, it’s members retold stories of the previous space missions and being the first people to have landed on the moon. Second are their heroes. At Morton Thiokol, their heroes might have been the founders of the organization or it’s top executives like Charles Locke or Jerry Mason. At NASA, their...
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...Discuss the changes that NASA implemented after the Challenger disaster Really developing an organization consist of finding needs for change within an organization. It is also the time to quickly grasp the nature of the organization, identify the appropriate decision maker, and build a trusting relationship. The next step is the . Start-up and contracting. In this step, a company identify critical success factors and the real issues, link into the organization's culture and processes, and clarify roles for the consultant(s) and employees. This is also the time to deal with resistance within the organization. A formal or informal contract will define the change process. 3. Assessment and diagnosis. In this case the president needed to sit down and process their main issues in order to avoid another strike.(Grusenmeyer,2009) The Challenger disaster occurred in the first moments of launch on an unusually cold January 28, 1986. Because of the cold weather, an O-ring seal between SRB segments leaked hot combustion gas, which quickly triggered the explosion that destroyed the vehicle. The dynamics of launch cause the joints between SRB segments to flex, and to prevent leaks the O-rings must be resilient enough to "follow" this flexure and maintain their seal. The cold O-rings were too stiff to follow the joint flexure. (Coffey 2010)The Columbia disaster culminated during reentry on February 1, 2003, after completion of the mission's on-orbit tasks. During launch the external...
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...DeVry University Keller Graduate School of Management Pomona, California The Challenger- Nasa’s Decision MAking Process By Briana Bass Brianacbass@gmail.com Leadership & Organization Behavior MGMT-591-20623 John Poore 2/19/2015 The Challenger- NASA’s Decision Making Process Introduction: I am researching the decision making process that allowed on space shuttle, called the Challenger to go up into space, but was destroyed upon take off. I will analyze the reasons why NASA allowed this aircraft to take off, and the reason why it should not have. I will also research the aftermath and how this huge error could have been avoided. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration was created on October 1, 1958 by the President of the United States and Congress. It was to provide research into the problems of flight within and outside the Earth’s atmosphere. The main reason NASA was invented was due to World War 2. The United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a cold ward. During this time, space exploration become the one of the highest priority discussions. This became known as the space race. (American Psychological Association, 2011) The United States launched its first Earth satellite on January 31, 1958. It was called Explorer 1. Then the United States started several missions to the moon and other planets in 1950 and the 1960’s. It had 8,000 employees and an annual budget of $100 million. Nasa rapidly grew. They...
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...Picture this, in 10 to 20 years the first human mission to mars is launched and the largest space travel breakthrough since the moon landing is occurring, the catch is no one is able to watch. This magnificent event is shrouded in darkness and censored, for with such an astonishing voyage comes many risks, although the reward for viewing such a feat would be life changing. In Ronald Regan’s famous speech “Challenger” and History.com’s article labeled “Challenger disaster” we learn about the horrendous event that took place in American history, but we also get a frame for just how important this event was and still is to this day. “I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's...
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...On the 1st February 2003, a critical systems failure on the space shuttle Columbia on its re-entry to the earth’s atmosphere. This caused the disintegration of the shuttle leading to the death of all seven crew members. 1. Describe NASA's apparent approach to risk management after Challenger but before Columbia. On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart in 76 seconds after launch, killing all of its 7 crew members. On the day of launch engineers were concerned that the temperature was too low to launch (-2.2 C lowest launch temperatures recorded) and that there was too much ice on the shuttle. O-rings would not perform correctly at this temperature. NASA management was told of this issue but it was deemed an acceptable risk and launch went ahead. After the incident, a new safety office was created to allow better communication and risk assessment. NASA’s apparent approach to risk management at this time was probable risk management1. For the space shuttle, linear analysis might be sufficient between probability, impact, and frequency2, with probability addressing how likely the risk event or condition is to occur, impact detailing the extent of what could happen if the risk materialized, and frequency meaning likelihood of occurrence of an event whose values lie between zero and one. 2. What additional risk measures would you recommend to NASA? Justify your recommendations? Firstly, NASA may need to change the organizational attitude...
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...pressure creates a blowhole in the putty, allowing the O-rings to move into the positions needed to seal the joint as the gap between tang and clevis expands. Through the blowhole, gases penetrate and wear away the O-rings.” As seen in the diagram the Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) has two O-rings, working in series. This means that when the primary O-Ring fails the Secondary O-ring will protect the system from the outside, increasing the reliability of the system. Or at least that was the intent of the design; which worked during testing. The main problem was that all testing was conducted at warmer temperatures between 65 – 80°F and the launch day was about 50 degrees colder than the temperature during testing. In preparation to the Challenger mission testing on the SRB system was performed and it was noted during testing that the O-rings eroded to an extent. It was also noted that the erosion was not to the point of failure, therefore NASA decided the risk was minimal. The problem with this approach was that the erosion noted during test was, as stated above, at temperatures higher that launch the ambient temperature. Temperatures as the one experienced at launch caused the O-rings to contract further compromising their sealing value. With a good Risk Board NASA might have studied the O-Ring failure mode and extrapolate the behavior of the O-Rings at the ambient temperature of the launch. The...
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...English 101: College Composition 14 May 2015 The Columbia STS-107 Disaster: Why Did It Happen and Why Wasn’t It Prevented? At 9 a.m. on February 1st 2003 NASA’s (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Space Shuttle, Columbia STS-107 disintegrated over the southern United States upon re-entry. There was some controversy surrounded this disaster, mainly how the Mission Management Team (MMT) (leader, Linda Ham handled the entire situation. Could this disaster been prevented? NASA could have prevented the issue with all the new age technology that they posses. How are teams like Debris Assessment Team (DAT) and MMT prepared now to take action against problems that arise in the future? This disaster should not have occurred but it did, why did it? Who is responsible? Will it happen again? If more time was spend of trying to rectify the issue before it got out of hand, maybe the crew of the Columbia would have landed safely as it was supposed to. The space shuttle Columbia STS-107 launched on January 16, 2003 from Kennedy Space Center. During the launch a briefcase-size chunk of foam insulation fell away from a bi-pod ramp on the ships external tank 81.7 seconds after liftoff (Harwood). The foam chunk with velocity smashed a hole in one of the protective shields panels that make up the left wing leading edge. Photos and video shows this happening very clearly. What you cannot see is where the foam actually hit. The only thing that is visible is when the foam explodes...
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