U NIVERSITY OF TASMANIA , S CHOOL OF N ATURAL S CIENCES (M ATHEMATICS )

KMA353 Data Handling and Statistics 3

Project 3
Due: 10am Monday April 19, 2021

Dr Shane A. Richards
B ACKGROUND
In 1986 the NASA space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after it was launched. After an
investigation it was concluded that this had occurred as a result of an O-ring failure. O-rings
are toroidal seals and in the shuttles six were used to prevent hot gases escaping and coming
into contact with fuel supply lines. Data were collected from 23 previous shuttle flights on
the ambient temperature at the time of launch, and the number of O-rings, out of the six,
that were damaged during the launch. Prior to the Challenger disaster NASA staff analysed
these data to assess whether the risk of O-ring failure damage was related to temperature, but
it is reported that they excluded the zero responses (i.e., none of the rings damaged) because
they believed them to be uninformative. That analysis led them to believe that the risk of
damage was independent of the ambient temperature at the launch. The temperatures for
the 23 previous launches ranged from 53 to 81 degreees Fahrenheit, while the Challenger
launch temperature was 31 degrees Fahrenheit (i.e., -0.6 degrees Centigrade).
The O-ring data collected from the 23 flights are provided in the file Challenger.csv. Each
row of the file corresponds to a shuttle flight. This file contains two columns: Temperature
(temperature in degrees Fahrenheit at the time of launch), and Failures (number of O-rings
that failed during the flight). Note that six O-rings were used during each launch.

1 PART 1
Is there statistical evidence that the probability of O-ring failure is related to temperature if
you include all of the data (i.e., the zeros)?

2 PART 2
Produce a plot of the raw data and the best-fit predictions that would be appropriate for a
report. Provide a brief figure legend.

3 PART 3
(a) The data show that for the previous successful launches, at most, two of the six O-rings
failed. Use your best model to predict the probability that three or more of the O-rings failed
on the day of the fatal launch.

1
(b) How confident are you that your fitted model provides reliable predictions for part (a).
Briefly explain your answer.

I NSTRUCTIONS

Use a Rmarkdown document to perform this assignment. Make sure you submit either a single
PDF document to MyLO, or the .Rmd file if you cannot knit to PDF, by the due date and time.
For this project I am not expecting a formal report but you must perform all tasks set and
answer all questions.