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On This Day in 1986: NASA's Challenger Explodes
January 28, 2021 at 11:25 PM EST
By WeatherBug's Chris Sayles
It has been 35 years since one of the most devastating events to take place in U.S. history unfolded. The NASA Space Shuttle Challenger would explode midflight, causing the death of everyone on board.
It was a day that started out with excitement as a team of astronauts led by Commander Francis Scobee set out on a journey into space. Sadly, nothing could prepare the crew for what was about to unravel as liftoff initiated that morning.
The weather at Cape Canaveral, Fla., was reportedly the blame for the cataclysmic explosion that took place around 11:39 a.m. EST, just 73 seconds after liftoff. Surface temperatures at liftoff was a frigid 36 degrees but it had been in the 20s that same morning, leading to ice forming on the launch pad.
Morton-Thiokol engineers who were in charge of the construction of the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) urged that the launch should not take place if temperatures were not above 53 degrees. However, the minimum temperature for a permitted space launch at the time was 30 degrees and so the launch proceeded.
Due to the blueprint of the atmosphere, temperatures steadily decrease in the troposphere, the lowest level in the atmosphere, as you increase in altitude until you reach the tropopause where they remain constant. This decrease in temperatures may have exacerbated the malfunction to the Challenger’s O-rings on the boosters.
The launch was watched by millions of students nationwide as Challenger took school teacher Christa McAuliffe into space. They watched in horror as the malfunction would lead to the devastation of the astronauts loved ones. The cause of death of the astronauts baffled the recovery team. It was discovered that they may have survived the initial explosion but sustained injuries as they plummeted nearly 50,000 feet over 200 mph to the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
In the aftermath, Morton-Thiokol voluntarily paid NASA $10 million dollars in order to not be held liable for the incident. In the wake of this settlement, NASA would then create the Office of Safety, Reliability and Quality Assurance to help prevent this situation from occurring again. NASA’s Challenger shuttle is used today as a case study for engineer safety. After three years passed, NASA would resume the Space Shuttle Program with the successful launch of Discovery which carried five astronauts on a mission to space on the morning of September 29, 1988.
Source(s): NASA, weather.gov, Wikipedia.org
Story Image: The crew of Space Shuttle mission STS-51-L pose for their official portrait on November 15, 1985. In the back row from left to right: Ellison S. Onizuka, Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Greg Jarvis, and Judy Resnik. In the front row from left to right: Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, and Ron McNair. (NASA/Wikimedia Commons)
It was a day that started out with excitement as a team of astronauts led by Commander Francis Scobee set out on a journey into space. Sadly, nothing could prepare the crew for what was about to unravel as liftoff initiated that morning.
The weather at Cape Canaveral, Fla., was reportedly the blame for the cataclysmic explosion that took place around 11:39 a.m. EST, just 73 seconds after liftoff. Surface temperatures at liftoff was a frigid 36 degrees but it had been in the 20s that same morning, leading to ice forming on the launch pad.
Morton-Thiokol engineers who were in charge of the construction of the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) urged that the launch should not take place if temperatures were not above 53 degrees. However, the minimum temperature for a permitted space launch at the time was 30 degrees and so the launch proceeded.
Due to the blueprint of the atmosphere, temperatures steadily decrease in the troposphere, the lowest level in the atmosphere, as you increase in altitude until you reach the tropopause where they remain constant. This decrease in temperatures may have exacerbated the malfunction to the Challenger’s O-rings on the boosters.
The launch was watched by millions of students nationwide as Challenger took school teacher Christa McAuliffe into space. They watched in horror as the malfunction would lead to the devastation of the astronauts loved ones. The cause of death of the astronauts baffled the recovery team. It was discovered that they may have survived the initial explosion but sustained injuries as they plummeted nearly 50,000 feet over 200 mph to the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
In the aftermath, Morton-Thiokol voluntarily paid NASA $10 million dollars in order to not be held liable for the incident. In the wake of this settlement, NASA would then create the Office of Safety, Reliability and Quality Assurance to help prevent this situation from occurring again. NASA’s Challenger shuttle is used today as a case study for engineer safety. After three years passed, NASA would resume the Space Shuttle Program with the successful launch of Discovery which carried five astronauts on a mission to space on the morning of September 29, 1988.
Source(s): NASA, weather.gov, Wikipedia.org
Story Image: The crew of Space Shuttle mission STS-51-L pose for their official portrait on November 15, 1985. In the back row from left to right: Ellison S. Onizuka, Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Greg Jarvis, and Judy Resnik. In the front row from left to right: Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, and Ron McNair. (NASA/Wikimedia Commons)