Product Description
Thiokol Chemical Corporation, later Morton Thiokol and ultimately part of Northrop Grumman, was the principal U.S. designer and manufacturer of large solid rocket motors from the 1960s onward, including the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster (SRB), the Minuteman ICBM motor stack, and the Titan III and Titan IV solid rocket motors. Plaintiffs allege in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that Thiokol solid rocket motors were built with an asbestos-fabric internal insulation liner between the propellant grain and the steel case, and with asbestos-composite (asbestos-phenolic) nozzle throat inserts designed to withstand the extreme thermal and erosive environment of solid-propellant combustion. Plaintiffs allege these asbestos-containing materials were selected for their ablative performance during motor burn.
Workers Exposed
Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that occupational exposure to alleged Thiokol solid rocket motor asbestos components occurred among:
- Solid rocket motor mixing-and-casting operators at Thiokol Utah and other propulsion plants
- Aerospace-contractor propulsion technicians laying up asbestos-fabric case liner in steel motor cases
- Air Force ICBM propellant handlers servicing Minuteman and Titan motor stages
- Kennedy Space Center / Cape Canaveral SRB stack-and-mate technicians assembling Shuttle boosters
- Post-firing recovery and refurbishment technicians reworking recovered Shuttle SRB segments
Alleged exposure pathways included fiber release during case-liner lay-up and cure, dust generated during machining of asbestos-composite nozzle throat inserts, and disturbance of charred asbestos liner material during post-firing SRB segment refurbishment.