TEXAS A&M MARKS ANNIVERSARY WITH TREE PLANTING Chambers also retired from the FBI and is a police captain in the small East Texas town of Lindale.
The remaining debris is now stored in a missile silo at Cape Canaveral."That's the best I can do, just helping them bring each other home," Chambers said. Ten years after the Challenger disaster, two large pieces from the spacecraft washed ashore on a Florida beach. While missions resumed in July 2005, the space shuttle program ended in 2011. 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. Since then, the space shuttle has carried out numerous important missions, including the repair and maintenance of the Hubble Space Telescope and the construction of the International Space Station. Aftermath of the Challenger ExplosionĪfter the accident, NASA refrained from sending astronauts into space for more than two years as it redesigned a number of the shuttle’s features.įlights began again in September 1988 with the successful launching of Discovery. NASA managers were aware of these design problems but also failed to take action.įamously, scientist Richard Feynman, a member of the commission, demonstrated the O-ring flaw to the public using a simple glass of ice water. The commission also found that Morton Thiokol, the company that designed the solid rocket boosters, had ignored warnings about potential issues. Flames then broke out of the booster and damaged the external fuel tank, causing the spacecraft to explode and disintegrate. Their investigation revealed that the O-ring seal on Challenger’s solid rocket booster, which had become brittle in the cold temperatures, failed. Headed by former secretary of state William Rogers, the commission included former astronaut Neil Armstrong and former test pilot Chuck Yeager. Shortly after the disaster, President Ronald Reagan appointed a special commission to determine what went wrong with Challenger and to develop future corrective measures. READ MORE: Challenger Explosion: How Groupthink and Other Causes Led to the Tragedy Rogers Commission Within seconds, the spacecraft broke apart and plunged into the ocean, killing its entire crew, traumatizing the nation and throwing NASA’s shuttle program into turmoil. Millions more watched the wrenching tragedy unfold on live television. Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds on the ground, including the families of McAuliffe and the other astronauts on board, stared in disbelief as the shuttle broke up in a plume of smoke and fire. However, these warnings went unheeded, and at 11:39 a.m. 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. The mission’s launch from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, was delayed for six days due to weather and technical problems. READ MORE: Big Bird Nearly Rode on the Disastrous Challenger Mission Challenger Disaster After undergoing months of training, she was set to become the first ordinary American citizen to travel into space. 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 instructor from New Hampshire who had earned a spot on the mission through NASA’s Teacher in Space Program. Early shuttles took satellite equipment into space and carried out various scientific experiments.ĭid you know? After "Teacher in Space" Christa McAuliffe was killed during the 1986 Challenger disaster, her backup, a former math teacher named Barbara Morgan, served as a mission specialist during a 2007 flight of the shuttle Endeavor.Ĭhallenger, NASA’s second space shuttle to enter service, embarked on its maiden voyage on April 4, 1983, and made a total of nine voyages prior to 1986. When the mission was completed, the shuttle fired engines to reduce speed and, after descending through the atmosphere, landed like a glider. Launched by two solid-rocket boosters and its main engines, the aircraft-like shuttle entered into orbit around Earth. In 1976, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) unveiled the world’s first reusable manned spacecraft, known as the space shuttle.įive years later, flights began when the space shuttle Columbia embarked on a 54-hour mission.
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