The Challenger Disaster

Waikato Management School

Te Raupapa

The University of Waikato

Private Bag 3105

Hamilton

New Zealand

EXLD500-11GB

Management and Sustainability

Assessment 3 – Challenger Case

Ron McDowall

Names and ID´s : Carol Guler 1164041 / Hannah Clarke 1075868 / Weiheng Si 1090355 / Emily Zhong 1142917 / Hader Alarifi 1163102

Date : 11 April, 2011

Introduction

The following case analysis will discuss, what happened in the Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster, and describe the contributions from the three key players: NASA, Thiokol and the White House. It will analyze why the disaster occurred and whether integrated thinking could have produced a better outcome; this will include discussion of miscommunication, risk issues and political pressure.

Reviewing the Case

The Challenger disaster occurred on 28 January 1986 where the Challenger blew up 73 seconds after launch, this resulted in the death of seven people and $3 billion worth of equipment was lost. The disaster occurred because of a fault with the O-rings, as they did not seal adequately, this caused flames from the Solid-Fuel Rocket Boosters (SRB) to burn directly onto the external tank. The engineer of Thiokol had realized the risk before Challenger been launched, however, the engineer’s opinion was not carefully considered.

Contributing factors:

The factors can be grouped into two key areas these include internal and external factors.

The internal factors were found by the Roger Commission, who were in charge of the investigation, they include mechanical problems and administrative problems.

The mechanical problem occurred as the field joint in the SRB let the exhaust flames leak. Because of this failure of the sealing system there were four problems, which resulted in the Challenger explosion. This problem involved the O-rings not sealing correctly, this could have been avoided if the Challenger launch was delayed as steel billets were being designed for a new structure...