Challenger Space Shuttle Failure

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The significant engineering failure that will be analyzed is the Space Shuttle Challenger. In 1986, the Challenger faced many launch delays. The first delay of the Challenger was due to the expected weather front and presence of the Vice President (ENGINEERING.com). Since rain and cold temperatures were expected to move into the area, they didn’t want the Vice President to make unnecessary trips. However, the launch window became perfect weather conditions due the weather front stalling. The second delay was due to a defective microswitch in the hatch locking mechanism. By the time the problem was fixed, the winds became too high and the weather front had started to move again.
Due to these delays, the night before the launch, there was …show more content…

For the effectiveness requirements, the cost of this shuttle needs to meet with the budget cuts. Also, its failure rate should be low as possible and systems should be reliable. For the operational life cycle, the system life cycle should be long, since it will be reusable. Also, the space shuttle system anticipated time of use will be as long as the missions, which could range between days and months. For the environment, the space shuttle will be in space, air, and ground with varying temperatures. This process is very important, because it is critical to address these requirements in the proper context for the entire system at an early stage in order to optimize the …show more content…

Maintenance is done to extend the life of the system and to make sure the system continues to meet its overall operational requirements. There are three levels of maintenance (Blanchard). The first level is organizational maintenance. At this level, the maintenance is performed at the site by local personnel with low maintenance skills. They usually perform visual inspections, operational checkout, minor servicing, external adjustments, and more. The second level is intermediate maintenance. At this level, the maintenance is performed by mobile or semi-mobile units by personnel with intermediate maintenance skills. This level usually performs detailed inspections and system checkout, major servicing, major equipment repair and modifications, simple software maintenance, and more. The third level is depot maintenance. This is usually performed at a fixed location by personnel with high maintenance skills. At this level, they performed complicated factory adjustments, complex equipment repairs and modifications, overhaul and rebuild, detailed calibration, and more. Between these three levels of maintenance, the space shuttle will experience all three levels of maintenance. However, it will experience more of the intermediate and depot levels since it is a complex system that can have a catastrophic

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