Post date: Jan 26, 2011 2:49:44 PM
NASA to mark the 25th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion that killed seven astronauts after a booster engine failed just after launch.
CAPE CANAVERAL, UNITED STATES (JANUARY 28, 1986) NASA - NASA will mark the 25th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger explosion on Friday (January 28).
Seven astronauts were killed on January 28, 1986, when a booster engine failed just 73 seconds after launch, causing Challenger to explode.Crew member Christa McAuliffe became famous before the launch when she was selected in a nationwide search for a teacher who would become NASA's first citizen passenger to travel into space.
McAuliffe's parents were among a crowd of spectators at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida who watched the shuttle climb lift into the sky and then explode.
Schoolchildren across the U.S., including those attending the Concord, New Hampshire school where McAuliffe taught, also watched the doomed launch on live television.
President Reagan eulogized the crew and comforted their family members after the disaster.
Wreckage verified to be from the Challenger washed up on a Florida beach in 1996, more than a decade after debris from the explosion fell into the ocean.
NASA is shutting down the 30-year-old shuttle program due to high operating costs and to free up funds to start developing a new space launch system that can carry people and cargo to asteroids and other destinations beyond the station's 220-mile-high (350-km-high) orbit.
Space shuttle Discovery's launch has been reset for February 24 after NASA officials said problems with its fuel tank were resolved.
The cargo-delivery flight to the International Space Station, one of the last for the space shuttle program, has been on hold since November.