NASA managers had known since 1977 that contractor Morton-Thiokol's design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings, but they had failed to address this problem properly.
Manajer NASA telah diketahui bahwa kontraktor Morton Thiokol desain SRB mengandung cacat yang berpotensi bencana di O-cincin sejak tahun 1977, tetapi mereka gagal untuk mengatasinya dengan benar.