When was challenger launched

The Challenger disaster was the first major shuttle accident. In the aftermath of the disaster, President Ronald Reagan appointed a special commission to determine what went wrong with Challenger and to develop future corrective measures. The presidential commission was headed by former secretary of state William Rogers, and included former astronaut Neil Armstrong and former test pilot Chuck Yeager.

The elastic O-ring did not respond as expected because of the cold temperature at launch time, which began a chain of events that resulted in the massive loss. As a result, NASA did not send astronauts into space for more than two years as it redesigned a number of features of the space shuttle. In September , space shuttle flights resumed with the successful launching of the Discovery.

Since then, the space shuttle has carried out numerous important missions, such as the repair and maintenance of the Hubble Space Telescope and the construction of the International Space Station. All aboard were killed. Despite fears that the problems that downed Columbia had not been satisfactorily addressed, space-shuttle flights resumed on July 26, , when Discovery was again put into orbit.

But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! On the morning of January 28, , a Mexican maid named Carmelita Torres refuses to put up with the indignity she has been made to suffer every morning since she started working across the border in the United States. Liquid hydrogen and oxygen ignited, and the explosion enveloped Challenger. Though it has been widely reported that the Space Shuttle "exploded," that is not the case.

Flying faster than the speed of sound, Challenger was thrown off its flight path when the tank exploded. Aerodynamic forces basically tore the shuttle apart. The crew never stood a chance. There was no escape option. At the end of the day, we had lost Challenger and her brave crew. The space shuttle program was grounded for more than two years as safety improvements were made; better seals on the SRBs, heaters on those seals, and an escape system for astronauts on the shuttle.

Looking back at the impact of weather on the accident, you have to wonder: if just one of those instances had not occurred, would Challenger and her crew have made it safely into orbit? The cold was the main weather factor on January 28, and if the launch had occurred any day before that very cold morning, the O-ring failure would have likely not occurred.

If Challenger had not flown through the wind shear after launch, would the aluminum oxide seal have held long enough for SRB separation a little over a minute later? Accidents are like a chain; each element is a link. You remove any link and you stop the accident from happening. The improvements after the accident did make the shuttles safer, though they were still dangerous. Though NASA makes space flight look easy, it is not. There is a lot of risk.

Beginning with the "Return to Flight" mission of Discovery in the fall of , NASA had many years of successful space shuttle flights until the loss of Columbia in February The loss of Columbia was the beginning of the end of the space shuttle program. Flights continued until the final shuttle flight of Atlantis in July Today, the remaining shuttles — Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavour, and Enterprise — are on display around the country. But later investigation showed that in fact, there was no detonation or explosion in the way we commonly understand the concept.

The fuel tank itself collapsed and tore apart, and the resulting flood of liquid oxygen and hydrogen created the huge fireball believed by many to be an explosion. After the collapse of its fuel tank, the Challenger itself remained momentarily intact, and actually continued moving upwards. Without its fuel tank and boosters beneath it, however, powerful aerodynamic forces soon pulled the orbiter apart. The pieces—including the crew cabin—reached an altitude of some 65, feet before falling out of the sky into the Atlantic Ocean below.

The five astronauts and two payload specialists that made up the STS L crew aboard the space shuttle Challenger in January of Crew members are left to right, front row astronauts Michael J. Remains that could be identified were turned over to the families, while the rest were buried in a monument to the Challenger crew at Arlington National Cemetery on May 20, A presidential commission was convened to look into the incident, chaired by former Attorney General and Secretary of State William P.

The commission report talked about the technical causes of the accident. The entire failure could be traced to an O-ring, a rubber seal on the solid rocket boosters that degraded in the cold weather of the launch.

But the O-ring would not have been a problem had NASA not chosen to launch on so cold a day -- the coldest launch yet, according to an NPR interview with one of the shuttle engineers. While the engineer blames himself for not convincing NASA and high-level managers of the danger the cold presented, a US House of Representatives report from the Committee on Science and Technology concluded that it was a long-standing failure in safety protocols, combined with an unsustainable launch rate that led to the disaster.

In the wake of what happened with Challenger, NASA made technical changes to the shuttle and also worked to change the safety and accountability culture of its workforce. The shuttle program resumed flights in After the Challenger wreckage was examined, most of the pieces were buried and sealed in abandoned Minuteman missile silos at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where they remain today.

Challenger's explosion changed the space shuttle program in several ways. Plans to fly civilians in space such as teachers or journalists were shelved for the next 22 years, until Barbara Morgan , who was McAuliffe's backup, flew aboard Endeavour in Satellite launches were shifted from the shuttle to reusable rockets. Additionally, astronauts were pulled off duties such as repairing satellites, and the Manned Maneuvering Unit was not flown again, to better preserve astronaut safety. Challenger has also left an educational legacy: Members of the crews' families founded the Challenger Center for Space Science Education program, which brings students on simulated space missions.

Visitors to the Kennedy Space Center can view debris from Challenger's last mission as well as Columbia at an exhibit called "Forever Remembered," which opened in The debris is on display at the visitor's center.