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The Space Shuttle Columbia was lost as it returned from a two-week mission when previously detected damage to the shuttle's thermal protection system (TPS) resulted in the spacecraft breaking apart during reentry at an altitude of just under 65 km and a speed of about Mach 19. Investigation revealed that a piece of foam insulation had fallen ...
The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated by NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development. [ 1 ]
However, at around T+36 seconds and an altitude of just over 3,000 m (9,800 ft), Challenger experienced the strongest wind shear ever felt during a Space Shuttle launch. The pitch and yaw commanded by the shuttle's computers in order to counter this wind caused the solid fuel plug to become dislodged from the field joint on the right SRB. [1]
A second space shuttle disaster. Seventeen years after the Challenger disaster, another shuttle and its crew were lost in the skies above America: The shuttle Columbia broke apart upon reentry on ...
STS-51-L was the disastrous 25th mission of NASA's Space Shuttle program and the final flight of Space Shuttle Challenger. It was planned as the first Teacher in Space Project flight in addition to observing Halley's Comet for six days and performing a routine satellite deployment.
The shuttle program was marked by triumphs and failures, including the 2003 Columbia disaster. The tragedies left a lasting mark on the perception of risks in space.
The Space Shuttle mission, named STS-51-L, was the twenty-fifth Space Shuttle flight and the tenth flight of Challenger. [3]: 6 The crew was announced on January 27, 1985, and was commanded by Dick Scobee. Michael Smith was assigned as the pilot, and the mission specialists were Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, and Ronald McNair.
The original intention was to compensate for this lower payload by lowering the per-launch costs and a high launch frequency. However, the actual costs of a Space Shuttle launch were higher than initially predicted, and the Space Shuttle did not fly the intended 24 missions per year as initially predicted by NASA. [54] [24]: III–489–490