Search results
Space Shuttle Challenger – assembled for launch along with the ET and two SRBs – atop a crawler-transporter en route to the launch pad about one month before the disaster. The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable spacecraft operated by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Jan 25, 2011 · A mere 73 seconds after liftoff, live television coverage showed the shuttle break apart and disappear from view. Here is an overview of what happened, how, and the consequences for NASA. Who...
Jan 28, 2016 · On January 28, 1986, 1 minute and 13 seconds after liftoff, space shuttle Challenger exploded as thousands watched the launch in person and on television. All seven astronauts on board were...
- CBS News
- 1 min
- A nation watched as tragedy unfolded. Few people actually saw what happened live on television. The flight occurred during the early years of cable news, and although CNN was indeed carrying the launch when the shuttle was destroyed, all major broadcast stations had cut away — only to quickly return with taped relays.
- Challenger exploded. The shuttle did not explode in the common definition of that word. There was no shock wave, no detonation, no "bang" — viewers on the ground just heard the roar of the engines stop as the shuttle’s fuel tank tore apart, spilling liquid oxygen and hydrogen which formed a huge fireball at an altitude of 46,000 ft.
- The crew died instantly. The flight, and the astronauts’ lives, did not end at that point, 73 seconds after launch. After Challenger was torn apart, the pieces continued upward from their own momentum, reaching a peak altitude of 65,000 feet before arching back down into the water.
- Dangerous booster flaws result of meddling. The side-mounted booster rockets, which help propel the shuttle at launch then drop off during ascent, did possess flaws subject to improvement.
Jan 28, 2021 · NASA officials saw the ice build-up on the pad and delayed the launch of Challenger to give the ice time to melt. Challenger's liftoff occurred at 11:38 that morning. The temperature at the time of the launch was 36 degrees.
The timeline merges telemetry beamed down from the shuttle, NASA recordings of the flight director's loop in mission control at the Johnson Space Center, the NASA-Select audio circuit heard by the...
Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch, and a crew of seven astronauts perished. Soon after the Challenger explosion, President Ronald Reagan formed the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident.
