U.S., Thiokol Split Settlement for Challenger

The federal government and Morton Thiokol Inc. bought annuities for $7.735 million to settle the claims by survivors of four of the astronauts who died aboard the space shuttle Challenger, according to documents released today.

Morton Thiokol, the company that produced the faulty booster rocket blamed for the Jan. 28, 1986, explosion, paid 60% of the total cost of buying the annuities, the Justice Department acknowledged. The government’s share was 40%.

The families will actually receive more than $7.7 million because the annuities pay out over a period of many years. The total they will receive and the breakdown by family were not released.

The documents were released to settle a civil suit brought under the Freedom of Information Act. The government had originally kept all details of the settlements secret.

The settlements were reached by the government and the company with the immediate survivors of spacecraft commander Dick Scobee, 46, a retired Air Force officer employed by NASA; mission specialist Ellison S. Onizuka, 39, an Air Force lieutenant colonel; payload specialist Gregory Jarvis, 41, an employee of Hughes Aircraft Co., and Christa McAuliffe, 37, a Concord, N.H., high school teacher.

Resnik Settlement Told

Last month, Marvin Resnik, the divorced father of mission specialist Judith A. Resnik, 36, a civilian NASA employee, settled with the company for an amount he said was “commensurate with what some of the others got--from $2 million to $3.5 million.”

In January, Sarah Resnik Belfer, divorced mother of the astronaut, and Bruce Jarvis, father of the Hughes employee, settled with the company. The amounts were not disclosed.

Last May, the company settled a suit by Cheryl McNair, wife of mission specialist Ronald E. McNair, 35, a civilian NASA employee who also left two infant children. The amount was not disclosed.

Jane Smith, wife of pilot Michael J. Smith, 40, a Navy commander, has a suit pending in federal court in Florida against the company.