Production of Rocket Chemical Resumes

Production of a critical ingredient for solid rocket fuel resumed Monday at a Kerr-McGee Corp. plant, five weeks after explosions destroyed the only other plant making the chemical a mile away.

Workers resumed production Monday morning of the chemical, ammonium perchlorate, which provides the oxygen necessary to burn solid fuel in the booster rockets on the space shuttle and in some military rockets.

Plant spokeswoman Anita Bridges said workers will be on the job around the clock in three shifts as the plant in nearby Henderson gears up to operate at its capacity of 36 million pounds of the chemical a year.

Kerr-McGee agreed to temporarily halt its production of ammonium perchlorate after a series of explosions May 4 killed two people, injured 326 and caused an estimated $74 million in damage at the Pacific Engineering & Production Co. in Henderson.