Space Shuttle Challenger

The space shuttle Challenger was the shortest lived of all the orbiters. It flew ten times in less than three years. Its loss in 1986 deeply shocked the nation.

Challenger was the second orbiter to join the fleet. It was named after a British corvette, the HMS Challenger, which was the command ship of the Challenger Expedition, a four-year global research voyage conducted from 1872 to 1876.

The space shuttle Challenger was originally constructed as a structural test article. However, when NASA determined that it would be too difficult to upgrade the first shuttle, Enterprise, for spaceflight, Challenger was built into a flight-ready orbiter.

Challenger flew its maiden voyage on April 4, 1983. The crew deployed a communications satellite and performed the first extravehicular activity (EVA) on a space shuttle mission.

Eight more flights followed that included a number of historic firsts. Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly into space in June 1983. Guion Bluford was the first African American in space two months later. Bruce McCandless made the first non-tethered spacewalk using the Manned Maneuvering Unit the following February, and Kathryn Sullivan made the first spacewalk by an American woman in October 1984. Challenger also flew three missions with the European Spacelab module in its cargo bay.

Then came January 28, 1986. The seven member crew that suited up for Challenger's 10th launch included five full-time NASA astronauts: Commander Francis Scobee, Pilot Michael Smith, and Mission Specialists Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, and Ronald McNair. There were also two part-time astronauts: New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, who was to give school lessons from orbit; and engineer Gregory Jarvis, whose company had launched a satellite aboard an earlier mission.

The launch appeared to go perfectly. Then, at 73 seconds into the flight, Challenger disappeared into a giant explosion. The shuttle had been destroyed with all hands lost.

The nation fell into a deep mourning. President Ronald Reagan said, “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God."

Investigators found that a rubber O-ring used to seal the joint between segments of one of the solid rocket boosters had failed. This allowed hot gasses to escape and to burn a hole through the external tank. The O-ring system had been poorly designed and unusually cold weather on launch day had weakened fatally it.

The tragedy had been preventable. NASA and the booster's builder, Morton Thiokol, had known about the O-ring problem but had failed to fix it. The night before Challenger's fatal flight, Morton Thiokol engineers had begged NASA not to fly the space shuttle in such cold weather.

Following the accident, the shuttle fleet was grounded for more than two years while the O-ring problem was fixed. NASA also began construction of a replacement orbiter, Endeavour, which would begin flights in 1992.

To honor the crew, the families of the astronauts established the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, an organization dedicated to science and space education. The non-profit group runs a network of Challenger Learning Centers worldwide.

By the Numbers

Total miles traveled: 23,661,290
Total time in space: 62 days
Total flights: 10
Total crew members: 60

Links for Space Shuttle Challenger

NASA Space Shuttle website

 

 

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