Challenger Spaceship

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center has announced the recovery of debris from the Challenger spaceship that exploded 73 seconds after liftoff killing all seven astronauts aboard 37 years ago.

The Challenger space shuttle disaster

• The spacecraft broke apart on January 28, 1986 after it suffered a major malfunction less than 2 minutes into its flight with investigations revealing freezing temperatures having affected the integrity of O-ring seals in the solid rocket booster segment joints.
• The O-ring seals are used to keep fluids from leaking and components sealed.
• The last Challenger mission, dubbed STS-51L, was commanded by Francis R “Dick” Scobee and piloted by Michael J Smith. 

About the mission

• The shuttle mission, which was NASA’s 25th, was supposed to be a six-day mission wherein, the seven-member crew was to deploy a large communications satellite, deploy and retrieve an astronomy payload to study Halley’s Comet. 
• The teacher, also the first civilian to head to space, was to conduct lessons for schoolchildren from orbit.
• The primary objective of the STS-51L mission was to launch the second Tracking and Data Relay System (TDRS) satellite into orbit.