Challenger was a NASA tragedy.
NASA's Shuttle program was begun in the 1970s, to create reusable craft for transporting cargo into space. Previous space craft could only be used once, then were discarded. The first shuttle, Columbia was launched in 1981. One year later, the Challenger rolled off the assembly line as the second shuttle of the US fleet. They were followed by Discovery in 1983 and Atlantis in 1985.
The Challenger flew nine successful missions before that fateful day of the disaster in 1986.
Shuttle mission 51L was much like most other missions. The Challenger was scheduled to carry some cargo, the Tracking Data Relay Satellite-2 as well as fly the Shuttle-Pointed Tool for Astronomy, Halley's Comet Experiment Deployable, a free-flying module designed to observe tail and coma of Halley's comet with two ultraviolet spectrometers and two cameras.
One thing made this mission unique. It was scheduled to be the first flight of a new program called TISP, the (Teacher In Space Program.) The Challenger was scheduled to carry Sharon Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher to fly in space.
The fixture was sawed off and an attaching bolt drilled out before closeout completed. During this delay, the cross winds exceeded limits at KSC's Shuttle Landing Facility. There as a final delay of two hours when a hardware interface module in the launch processing system, which monitors fire detection system, failed during liquid hydrogen tanking procedures. The Challenger finally lifted off at 11:38:00 a.m. EST.
Seventy three seconds into the mission, the Challenger exploded, killing the entire crew.
