HISTORY: Remembering the Challenger disaster 30 years later

Jan. 28, 2016 marks the 30th anniversary of the Challenger disaster. The ill-fated space shuttle blew up just 73 seconds after its launch, killing all seven crew members on board. Let’s take a look back at the events of the day and what followed.

Pictured: The Space Shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after lifting off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The explosion was blamed on faulty o-rings on one of the shuttle’s booster rockets. 

After a series of delays, on the morning of Jan. 28, 1986, six astronauts from NASA and a school teacher from Concord, New Hampshire boarded the space shuttle Challenger.

Pictured (in the back row from L-R): Mission Specialist, Elliosn S. Onizuka; Teacher in Space Participant, Sharon Christa McAuliffe; Payload Specialist, Greg Jarvis and Mission Specialist, Judy Resnik.

(Front row): Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair

One of the crew members was Christa McAuliffe (pictured), a 37-year-old social studies teacher from New Hampshire who was selected to join the mission to teach lessons from space to school students around the country. She would have been the first ordinary citizen to travel to space.

The mission was originally scheduled to take off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Jan. 22, 1986. But cold weather and technical problems delayed the launch until Jan. 28.

The launch on Jan. 28 was postponed by two hours when a hardware interface module which monitored the fire detection system failed during liquid hydrogen tanking procedures.

Pictured: The crew for the space shuttle Challenger leave their quarters for the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (From foreground): Commander Francis Scobee, Mission Specialist. Judith Resnik, Mission Specialist. Ronald McNair, Payload Specialist. Gregory Jarvis, Mission Specialist. Ellison Onizuka, teacher Christa McAuliffe and pilot Michael Smith. 

Challenger (pictured) lifted off at 11:59 A.M. as hundreds of people watched in anticipation. Challenger was NASA’s second reusable manned space shuttle after the success of Colombia.

The first visible indication to the naked eye of an abrupt change in the shape and color of the plume came at about 65 seconds into the launch. A swirling flame from the right solid rocket booster was seen in the air.

Pictured: A solid fuel rocket booster disappears behind the contrail of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger over Kennedy Space Center as debris from the orbiter begins to fall towards the earth. 

The excitement of the crowd and the experts in the control room soon turned into disbelief as they watched the shuttle explode in a forking plume of smoke and disintegrate 73 seconds later.

The nation was shocked as they watched the devastating end of the Challenger’s 10th mission. The tragedy received extensive media attention and NASA suspended all its shuttle missions for 32 months.

The spacecraft broke apart and its remains plunged into the Atlantic Ocean. The crew compartment and many other vehicle fragments were eventually recovered from the ocean floor after a lengthy search and recovery operation.

After the accident, NASA was forced to redesign a number of features in its future space programs for the safety of the astronauts. With this in place, NASA resumed its manned flights in September of 1988 with the successful launch of Discovery. 

Pictured: Upon completion of the 100th shuttle mission, the Space Shuttle Discovery touches down at Edwards Air Force Base at 2 pm Pacific time on Oct. 24th, 2000. 

Tanya Southward (C) holds a shuttle Challenger crew photograph at a public memorial service at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex, marking the 20th anniversary of the shuttle Challenger disaster on Jan. 28, 2006. On the 20th anniversary of the Challenger accident, the Astronauts Memorial Foundation conducted a ceremony to honor the crew of Challenger STS 51L and the astronauts who sacrificed their lives.

The names of shuttle Challenger (left) and Columbia crews are illuminated on the Space Mirror during NASA Day of Remembrance to pay tribute to the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida on Jan. 29, 2010.