The Challenger
A national tragedy unfolding on live television.
Alex Q. Arbuckle
Jan. 28, 1986
The morning of January 28, 1986 was unusually cold at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Temperatures overnight had dipped to just 18 degrees Fahrenheit, and icicles were adorning the tower from which the STS-51-L mission was scheduled to launch.STS-51-L was the official designation for the 25th mission of NASA’s Space Shuttle Program, and the tenth flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger, which had first flown in 1983. The mission had several objectives, including the deployment of a communications satellite and the observation of Halley’s Comet. The most novel goal of the mission, and the reason it was being watched live on television by millions of Americans, was to carry out lessons from orbit as the first outing of the Teacher in Space Project. For the first time, the shuttle crew included a civilian payload specialist: Christa McAuliffe, a social studies teacher at Concord High School in Concord, New Hampshire, who was selected for the program from more than 11,000 applicants.Since her selection, she had become a celebrity of sorts, charming the country with her humility and her enthusiasm for education. Millions of schoolchildren were tuned in to watch her live broadcast lessons on “The Ultimate Field Trip” as she and the other six crew members boarded the shuttle.
Imagine: a history teacher making history. - Christa McAuliffe
At 11:38 AM, the shuttle lifted off, as the families of the astronauts and classmates of McAuliffe’s son watched from nearby, bundled against the cold. 17 percent of Americans were watching on television.
73 seconds after launch, the shuttle and fuel tank disintegrated in a fireball at an altitude of 48,000 feet. Among the observers craning their necks from the ground, awe turned to confusion and worry. The families of the veteran astronauts were the first to realize the severity of what had happened. Soon, the VIP viewing stand was a scene of stunned grief. The families of McAuliffe and the rest of the crew clung to each other as debris rained down on the ocean from a dissipating white cloud.
The seven astronauts were the first fatalities of the Space Shuttle Program. An investigation revealed that the explosion was initially caused by the failure of an O-ring seal in the right solid rocket booster at liftoff, which became a burning fuel leak. The leak led to the structural failure of the fuel tank, causing the shuttle and tank assembly to destabilize and disintegrate under immense aerodynamic stresses.The investigation found that the potentially flawed design of the O-rings had been known but not properly addressed. An eagerness to launch among management had overridden engineers’ concerns about complications caused by the below-freezing temperatures of the launch day, which were outside the certified parameters of some vehicle components.
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.' - President Ronald Reagan's address to the nation, Jan. 28, 1986
Dozens of memorials and tributes have been built or named in honor of the crew of the Challenger, from schools and learning centers across the country, to craters on the moon.
