The rings were supposed to sit in a groove and seal the joint between the sections of the booster. By design, pressure from within the booster was to push a fillet of putty into the joint, forcing the O-ring into its seat. The sections of the boosters were joined using tang and clevis joints and the rings were intended to seal the joint while allowing for the inevitable movement between the sections under flight conditions. The O-rings were two rubber rings that formed a seal between two sections of the SRBs. During his investigation, he discovered that the first of a system of two O-rings had failed completely and that damage had been caused to the second O-ring. This memo followed his investigation of a solid rocket booster (SRB) from a shuttle flight in January 1985. Such a catastrophic event occurred six months later resulting in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. ( March 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)īoisjoly wrote a memo in July 1985 to his superiors concerning the faulty design of the solid rocket boosters that, if left unaddressed, could lead to a catastrophic event during launch of a Space Shuttle. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. This section needs additional citations for verification. O-ring safety concerns Simplified cross section of the joints between solid rocket booster segments outside at left.Ī – steel wall 0.5 inches (12.7 mm) thick He later worked for Morton Thiokol, the manufacturer of the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) for the Space Shuttle program. He subsequently worked for companies in California on lunar module life-support systems and the moon vehicle. Career īoisjoly started his career at a used-aircraft company in western Massachusetts, before moving to California for work. īoisjoly studied mechanical engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He grew up in the neighborhood of Belvedere as the son of a mill worker and one of three brothers.
Early life and education īoisjoly was born on April 25, 1938, in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts. He was considered a high-profile whistleblower. Morton Thiokol's managers decided to launch the shuttle despite his warnings, leading to the catastrophic failure. Boisjoly correctly predicted, based on earlier flight data, that the O-rings on the rocket boosters would fail if the shuttle launched in cold weather. He is best known for having raised strenuous objections to the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger months before the loss of the spacecraft and its crew in January 1986. Roger Mark Boisjoly ( / ˌ b oʊ ʒ ə ˈ l eɪ/ BOH-zhə- LAY, April 25, 1938 – January 6, 2012) was an American mechanical engineer, fluid dynamicist, and an aerodynamicist. Project manager of the solid fuel boosters of the Shuttle Program System
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