Space Shuttle Challenger

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Space Shuttle Challenger (NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-099) was NASA's second Space Shuttle orbiter to be put into service, after Columbia. Its maiden voyage was on April 4, 1983, and it made eight further round trips to low earth orbit before breaking up 73 seconds after the launch of its tenth mission, on January 28, 1986 killing all 7 crew members. (For more on the Challenger disaster, see Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.) It would later be replaced by the space shuttle Endeavour, which would be launched six years after the 51-L disaster.

Challenger was constructed using a body frame (STA-099) that had initially been built as a test article. STA-099 had not been meant for spaceflight, but NASA discovered that recycling it would be cheaper than refitting the test shuttle Enterprise (OV-101) to be spaceworthy, as originally planned. The spacecraft was named after a British corvette which carried out a pioneering global marine research expedition in the 1870s[link].

Challenger's rollout from Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). Photo courtesy of NASA

Challenger, along with Discovery was modified at KSC to be able to carry the Centaur upper-stage in its payload bay. Had STS-51-L been successful, Challenger's next mission would've been the deployment of the Ulysses probe with the Centaur to study the polar regions of the Sun.

Challenger was one of two space shuttles destroyed in an accident during a mission, the other being Columbia. The collected debris of the vessel is currently stored in decommissioned missile silos at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. From time to time, further pieces of debris from the orbiter wash up on the Florida coast. When this happens, they are collected and transported to the silos for storage.

Flights

US Space Shuttle program

Soviet Shuttle Buran program

The crew of the final, ill-fated flight of the Challenger.

Space Shuttle Challenger flew 10 flights, spent 62.41 days in space, completed 995 orbits, and flew 25,803,940 statute miles in total, including its final mission.

Date	Designation	Notes
1983 April 4	STS-6	Deployed TDRS-1. First spacewalk during a space shuttle mission.
1983 June 18	STS-7	Sally Ride becomes first American woman in space. Deployed two communications satellites.
1983 August 30	STS-8	Guion Bluford becomes first African-American in space First shuttle night launch and night landing. Deployed Insat-1B.
1984 February 3	STS-41-B	First untethered spacewalk. Deployed two communications satellites, unsuccessfully.
1984 April 6	STS-41-C	Solar Maximum Mission service mission.
1984 October 5	STS-41-G	First mission to carry two women. Marc Garneau become first Canadian in space. Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes first American woman to make a spacewalk. Deployed Earth Radiation Budget Satellite.
1985 April 29	STS-51-B	Carried Spacelab-3
1985 July 29	STS-51-F	Carried Spacelab-2
1985 October 30	STS-61-A	Carried German Spacelab D-1
1986 January 28	STS-51-L	Shuttle disintegrates after launch, killing all seven astronauts on board.

Loss of Challenger

During the second minute of its tenth mission in January 1986, the Challenger was destroyed, due to the failure of an SRB seal.

See also

• Challenger flag
• List of space shuttle missions
• Rendez-vous Houston
• Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

Bibliography

• Vaughan, D. (1996) The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture and Deviance at NASA ISBN 0226851761

External links

• [Ronald Reagan: Address to the Nation on the Explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger]
• [Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion video]
• [Orbiter Vehicles]
• [Shuttle Orbiter Challenger (OV-99)]
• [Rogers Commission Report]
• [Astronautix on Challenger]
• [Challenger Mission Videos of the Accident from Spaceflightnow.com]
• [NASA film on the accident and investigation downloadable from archive.org The Internet Archive'']
• [STS-51L - The Challenger accident]
• [Memorial to Greg Jarvis in Hermosa Beach, California]