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On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. The spacecraft disintegrated 46,000 feet (14 km) above the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39 a.m. EST (16:39 UTC).
Sep 9, 2024 · The Challenger disaster was the explosion of the U.S. space shuttle shortly after its launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on January 28, 1986. All seven astronauts on board died.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The most prominent victim of the Challenger disaster was Christa McAuliffe, a teacher whose role was to conduct at least two lessons from orbit. Ot...
- The immediate cause of the Challenger disaster was the failure of two rubber O-rings to seal a joint between the two lower segments of the right-ha...
Jan 28, 2011 · Twenty five years ago the Challenger space shuttle broke apart over a minute after its launch, killing all seven on board. It was both a tragedy and profoundly shocking event, the...
- Space Shuttle Program
- Challenger Disaster
- Rogers Commission
- Aftermath of The Challenger Explosion
In 1976, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)unveiled the world’s first reusable manned spacecraft, known as the space shuttle. Five years later, flights began when the space shuttle Columbiaembarked on a 54-hour mission. Launched by two solid-rocket boosters and its main engines, the aircraft-like shuttle entered into orbit aro...
The mission’s launch from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, was delayed for six days due to weather and technical problems. The morning of January 28was unusually cold, and engineers warned their superiors that certain components—particularly the rubber O-rings that sealed the joints of the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters—were vulner...
Shortly after the disaster, President Ronald Reagan appointed a special commission to determine what went wrong with Challenger and to develop future corrective measures. Headed by former secretary of state William Rogers, the commission included former astronaut Neil Armstrong and former test pilot Chuck Yeager. Their investigation revealed that t...
After the accident, NASA refrained from sending astronauts into space for more than two years as it redesigned a number of the shuttle’s features. Flights began again in September 1988 with the successful launching of Discovery. Since then, the space shuttle has carried out numerous important missions, including the repair and maintenance of the Hu...
Jun 18, 2024 · On January 28, 1986, NASA and the American people were rocked as tragedy unfolded 73 seconds into the flight of Space Shuttle Challenger’s STS-51L mission. Presented below are documents and resources about the accident and its aftermath.
It was destroyed in January 1986 soon after launch in a disaster that killed all seven crewmembers aboard. Initially manufactured as a test article not intended for spaceflight, it was utilized for ground testing of the Space Shuttle orbiter's structural design.
Jan 28, 2016 · NASA's space shuttle Challenger accident was a devastating tragedy that killed seven astronauts and shocked the world on Jan. 28, 1986.
