January 28, 1986, is one of the most fateful dates in space history. On that day occurred the most horrendous and the most public space disaster that has ever befallen mankind. The space shuttle orbiter Challenger, attempting its tenth flight into space, was blasted apart just 73 seconds after lift-off in the skies above the Kennedy Space Center. Its crew of seven were killed, becoming the first in-flight astronauts to perish in the US space programme. What was particularly heart-rending was the fact that the lift- off was being watched by countless millions of the nation's schoolchildren, who were scheduled to have lessons from space delivered by the first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe. Indeed, Challenger's mission, which NASA designated STS-51L, had been dubbed 'the teacher's flight'. STS-51L, the 25th shuttle mission, had been scheduled originally for January 22, 1986.
But delays in the previous shuttle flight (STS-61C) and bad weather had caused the launch date to slip five times.
The final go-ahead was given on the morning of January 28, despite the fact that temperatures had plummeted the previous night to -2 degrees C and icicles festooned the launch gantry. And at 11.38 am local time, Challenger roared off the pad in what looked like a perfect lift-off. But unseen by the crowd at the Kennedy Space Center and the millions watching on television, a plume of flame had emerged from a leaky joint in the right-hand SRB (solid rocket booster). The flame began playing on the strut that held the SRB to the external tank, which contained nearly a full load of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants for Challenger's main engines. At 72 seconds into the flight, the strut severed. The SRB swung round and smashed into the external tank. A second later the leaking propellant erupted in a gigantic explosion. Horrified watchers on the ground were stunned, praying that Challenger would emerge from the billowing fireball. The two SRBs did, but Challenger didn't.
It had been blasted to smithereens.
There could be no hope for the crew, whom President Ronald Reagan was later to call the seven star voyagers. They were commander Richard Scobee; pilot Michael Smith; mission specialists Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka and Ronald McNair; and payload specialists Gregory Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe. Afterwards, the first American in space, John Glenn, commented: "We always knew there would be a day like this." Said President Reagan: "Sometimes when we reach for the stars, we fall short. But we must press on despite the pain." The President set up a 13-member commission, under the chairmanship of former Secretary of State William Rogers, to investigate the Challenger disaster and to recommend steps to be taken so that such a tragedy would never happen again. The members included first-man-on-the-Moon Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride.
Their investigations pinpointed the exact cause of the disaster as the failure of a seal called an O-ring in the lower joint of the right-hand SRB, probably because it had lost its resilience due to the very low temperatures experienced on the launch pad the night before lift-off.
But the Rogers commission in addition was highly critical of NASA's management structure and lines of communication which spawned the flawed decision-making that allowed Challenger to lift off. It made sweeping recommendations for improvements in the shuttle hardware and mission management structure which had to be implemented before the shuttle could fly again. Former NASA Administrator James Fletcher was appointed for a second term to push through the commission's recommendations. But this took years rather than months. And it was not until 1988 that the shuttle was ready to fly again. On September 29 of that year Discovery made a flawless return to flight (STS-26), and spearheaded the second wave of the shuttle's exploration of space. By then work had started on a replacement orbiter for the shuttle fleet, which was named Endeavour. The new orbiter made its maiden flight, mission STS-49, on May 7, 1992.
