The Mars Rover Curiosity

During the tenth mission, low temperatures the morning of the launch resulted in the O-ring seals in the right booster becoming faulty. As a result, exhaust began leaking into the rocket during liftoff. Just 73 seconds later, all seven astronauts aboard died due

Then came the disaster that would change not only change space, but also US history. The Challenger exploded mid-flight on their way to their historic mission. What went wrong? What actually happened to cause a veteran space shuttle such as Challenger to dysfunction on its tenth run? A videotape showed black smoke coming from the bottom field joint of the right solid rocket booster (SRB). The black smoke suggested that grease, joint insulation, and rubber O-rings were being burned. The smoke continued to come from the bottom field joint facing the exterior tank in cycles of three puffs of smoke per second. The black smoke was an indication that the bottom field joint was not sealing correctly. Into flight the a flame was seen coming from the right SRB. The flame was coming from the underside of the bottom joint. As the flame increased in size, it had begun to push against the external tank due to the rushing air around the orbiter. Soon later there was a sudden chain of events that destroyed Challenger and the seven crew members on

Communication between Morton Thiokol (the company that designed the Solid Rocket Boosters) engineers and NASA management was also very poor. After the incident, Roger Boisjoly, a Morton Thiokol engineer, stated that the meetings prior to the Challenger launch were filled with "intense customer intimidation" (Boisjoly 1). Obviously, this was not a conducive environment to creating an atmosphere where everyone was comfortable expressing their opinions and making thoughtful decisions. The truth of the is that Morton Thiokol did not have any information on how its Solid Rocket Boosters and O-rings would perform at temperatures less than 51 ºF. The night before the launch, the temperature outside fell to 18 ºF, and in the morning of the launch the temperature was at 36 ºF. At that moment, some engineers believed that the boosters would still be able to function safely under these conditions, however many were very worried that the temperature would cause a failure. The inability of the Morton Thiokol engineers to convey their concerns to the NASA management and convince them to postpone the shuttle's launch is a factor that led to the tragic

The Challenger space shuttle exploded after its launch. “Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss,” (Reagan 1). The obstacles of the Challenger exploding caused a period of grief and anguish for the citizens of America.

On an unusually cool Florida morning in January 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 50,000 feet above ground just moments after liftoff killing seven crew members onboard (Palmer, Dunford, and Akin, 2009). A presidential commission, dubbed “the Rogers Commission” (hereafter, the Commission) after former Secretary of State William Rogers, was appointed to investigate the cause of the disaster. Although mechanical failure of an O-ring seal in one of the rocket boosters was identified as the physical cause, the investigation revealed something much more disheartening; organizational deficiencies at NASA had allowed potential safety hazards to be disregarded. The disastrous consequences of NASA’s organizational failure prompted calls

Four Technical Problems First let’s look at the four mechanical aspects of the Challengers problems, blow holes, O-Ring erosion, joint rotation, and the response of O-Rings during low temperature. The condition of the primary seal is essential to the successful operation of the rocket booster. Engineers had to make sure that the seal was not damaged, so they increased the pressure of the leak test to above the pressure that the putty could withstand. This was supposed to make sure the O-ring was correctly covering the gap without the help of the putty. Blow holes were tiny tunnel-like holes that were left in the zinc chromate putty of the rocket booster insulation. The putty was supposed to protect the O-rings from the hot exhaust. The holes were a result of pressurized test known as the leak check port. The leak test left engineers worried; they didn’t think that the

There was a failure during the launch of the space shuttle challenger with one of the 0-rings on the solid-propellant boosters. It had become brittle by the cold weather and failed. This catastrophe led to an explosion shortly after liftoff. Engineers who had designed the 0-rings had apprehensions about launching under these extreme cold conditions. The engineers recommended that the launch be postponed, but they were overridden by their management. The management team did not believe that there were enough statistics to support a postponement of the launch. The shuttle was launched, causing the infamous accident.

It was the Columbia’s 28th mission, which was originally scheduled to launch two years ago, on 11th of January, 2001, but was delayed 13 times due to different missions took priority in the two years period. On 16th January at 1210 a.m., a problem with the external tank attachment ring had discovered. Due to this fault, the ring plate might not meet the safety factor requirement of 1.4, ‘that is, able to withstand 1.4 times the maximum load expected in operation.’(CAIB 2003 p.33). Then, based on Columbia space shuttle had delayed for too long, the safety factor requirement was waived. The active manager of the launch team then gave a GO signal to the space shuttle. At 57 seconds after launched, Columbia received a wind shear which increased the aerodynamic force on the external tank. It might be one of the reasons that leads to the

days, due to technical problems and the poor weather. By the day of the launch, January 28th, the managers made the decision to go ahead with the launch, even though all of the engineers warned against it as the rubber O­rings could fail due to the low temperatures. The space shuttle exploded 73 seconds after lift, claiming the lives of all the seven astronauts inside ("​The Space Race”)​. Though this was a disaster, it prompted important investigations into NASA and the safety of shuttles that would later bring man to the moon. Top NASA executives

When the Space Shuttle and rockets were made the fuel source is liquid hydrogen. When keeping liquid hydrogen it has to be kept at a very low temperature. So to prevent frost from around the fuel tank a great amount of light foam was put around the tank to keep the liquid cool. This foam is light like any foam would find but very brittle and that is why it broke off of the main booster. As a result of the foam falling off of the main booster it had a severely damaged a piece of the heat shield on the outside of the Shuttle housing the

In November of 1986 when the space shuttle Challenger launched for its voyage it broke apart in the atmosphere after 73 seconds; because the O-rings could not hold at the cold temperatures. This was an issue brought up by scientists and later

The Challenger exploded on its tenth flight during mission STS-51L, killing all seven crew members. The explosion occurred 73 seconds after the shuttle took liftoff, and the reason behind the explosion were the faulty O-rings. There were predictions that if the O-rings were to malfunction due to the cold temperatures, the rockets could explode before the shuttle took off from the Launchpad (Miller 79).

One of the greatest tragedies in history occurred on January 8, 1986. Shortly after it was launched, the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing seven astronauts, including Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire schoolteacher chosen to be the first teacher in space (“Challenger Disaster, n.d.). The explosion was caused by a failure of the O-rings of the solid rocket boosters. The O-rings were unable to seat properly, causing the leaking of hot combustion gases, which burnt through the external fuel tank. The malfunction was not any one person’s or organization’s fault; it was caused by many factors including the decision to launch despite the cold weather, the poor communication between management levels of the National Aeronautics and

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), also known as the Curiosity rover, is a NASA mission with the goal of discovering details about past and present-day Mars. The primary purpose of the mission is to determine if Mars once had a suitable environment for microbial life. The area of Mars chosen to be studied is an ancient impact crater called the Gale Crater. It has many unique geologic features that piqued the interest of astronomers and geologists and could be indicative of past water flows and possibly habitable environments. Since landing on the crater in 2012, the rover has been very successful and has given a lot of information about the past and present of the plant.

Rockwell, the shuttle’s primary contractor, did not support the launch due to the possibility of ice leaving the structure and damaging the thermal shield tiles during takeoff. Their concerns were relayed to NASA, but in such a way that NASA chose to proceed with the launch [2]. Though this was eventually determined to be a non-issue in the Challenger launch, the true nature of the problems that can occur when an object strikes the shuttle during takeoff would not be learned until 2003, when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry due to damage of a heat shield tile that occurred during takeoff [2]--[3].