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, the space shuttle Columbia embarked on a successful 54-hour mission. Launched by two solid-rocket boosters and its main engines, the aircraft-like shuttle entered orbit around Earth.

When the mission was completed, the shuttle fired engines to reduce speed and, after descending through the atmosphere, landed like a glider. Early shuttles deployed satellite equipment into space and carried out a variety of scientific experiments.

Challenger, NASA’s second space shuttle to enter service, embarked on its maiden voyage on April 4, 1983, and completed nine missions prior to 1986.

That year, it was scheduled to launch on January 22 carrying a seven-member crew that included Christa McAuliffe, a 37-year-old high school social studies teacher from New Hampshire who had earned a spot on the mission through NASA’s Teacher in Space Program. After undergoing months of training, she was set to become the first civilian American to travel into space.

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 28 was 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 vulnerable to failure at low temperatures. However, these warnings went unheeded, and at 11:39 a.m., Challenger lifted off.

Just 73 seconds later, hundreds on the ground, including the families of McAuliffe and the other astronauts aboard, stared in disbelief as the shuttle broke up in a plume of smoke and fire. Millions more watched the wrenching tragedy unfold on live television.

Within seconds, the spacecraft broke apart and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, traumatizing the nation and throwing NASA’s shuttle program into turmoil. All seven crew members—McAuliffe, Commander Francis "Dick" Scobee, Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka and Gregory Jarvis—died in the disaster.

Shortly after the disaster, President Ronald Reagan appointed a special commission to determine what went wrong with Challenger and to develop corrective measures. Headed by former Secretary of State William P. Rogers, the commission included former astronaut Neil Armstrong and former test pilot Chuck Yeager.

Their investigation revealed that the rubber O-ring seal on Challenger’s solid rocket booster, which had become brittle in the cold temperatures, failed. Flames then escaped from the booster and damaged the external fuel tank, causing the spacecraft to explode and disintegrate.

The commission also found that Morton Thiokol, the company that designed the solid rocket boosters, had ignored warnings about potential safety issues. NASA managers were aware of these design problems but also failed to take action.

Famously, scientist Richard Feynman, a member of the commission, demonstrated the O-ring flaw to the public using a simple glass of ice water.

After the disaster, 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 launch of Discovery. Since then, the space shuttle carried out numerous important missions, including the repair and maintenance of the Hubble Space Telescope and the construction of the International Space Station.

On February 1, 2003, a second shuttle disaster rocked the United States when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentry, killing all seven people aboard. While missions resumed in July 2005, the space shuttle program ended in 2011.

Ten years after the Challenger disaster, two large pieces of debris from the spacecraft washed ashore on a Florida beach. The remaining debris is now stored in a missile silo at Cape Canaveral.