Tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger. On January 28th, 1986, at 11:39am ET, the Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-51-L) lifted off, for it’s 10th mission, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was the 25th flight of the American Space Shuttle program. Aboard were 7 crew including a civilian who worked as a school teacher. Seventy-three seconds after lift-off the mission ended in catastrophic failure; exploding and falling into the Atlantic Ocean off of the east coast of Florida. All 7 aboard were killed.
The explosion was eventually attributed to an “o-ring” failure in the right-side solid rocket booster. This flight marked the first time a non-government civilian, schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, had flown aboard a Space Shuttle. The other 6 were: Francis “Dick” Scobee (Commander), Michael Smith (Pilot), Judith Resnik (Mission Specialist), Ellison Onizuka (Mission Specialist), Ronald McNair (Mission Specialist) and Gregory Jarvis (Payload Specialist).
Here is the CNN live coverage.
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