Word: thiokol
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...language was dry, understated, yet painfully clear. What caused the space shuttle Challenger to explode last Jan. 28, killing its seven passengers? ''Failure of the pressure seal in the aft-field joint of the right solid-rocket motor.'' Why was the shuttle allowed to fly if unsafe? ''Neither Thiokol nor NASA responded adequately to internal warnings about the faulty seal design . . . There was a serious flaw in the decision-making process.'' The commission appointed to investigate the Challenger accident interviewed more than 160 people, held hearings that generated 2,800 pages of transcripts, then summarized it all in an orderly...
...blame for the Challenger disaster. The brass at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., have been trying to point the finger at Kennedy Space Center for botching the assembly of the solid rocket booster. Marshall's bureaucrats are accused of ignoring the warnings of engineers at Morton Thiokol, maker of the solid rocket booster, to postpone the launch because the cold weather could have damaged the O rings that sealed the segments of the booster. The evasions and backbiting have shocked members of the presidential panel. "A whole new NASA has got to come out of this mess...
...joint between segments of the solid-fuel rocket booster. Zeroing in on the booster joints, which are sealed by rubber O rings that are supposed to prevent leaks of superhot gas from the burning fuel, a team composed of outside experts as well as specialists from NASA and Morton Thiokol, manufacturer of the rocket, evolved a design that eventually withstood five full-scale, two-minute stationary firing tests at Thiokol's Utah proving grounds...
Whether or not the next test succeeds, other problems threaten to slow the countdown. Massive solid-fuel booster rockets like those on the shuttle must undergo a critical test, scheduled for Aug. 20 at the Morton Thiokol facility in Utah; the failure of a seal on a booster was responsible for the Challenger disaster. In addition, Discovery has a pressure-vent-line leak in one of its orbital maneuvering system engine pods, which came to light several weeks ago. NASA says repairs to the OMS pod, which involve cutting through a bulkhead, could delay the launch anywhere from a week...
...shuttle program also must pass another key propulsion test before Discovery can be certified for flight: a fullscale firing, the fifth in a series, of the redesigned solid fuel booster rocket at the Morton Thiokol plant in Utah. It is scheduled about August...