Date of mission January 28, 1986

American astronauts

On January 28, 1986, seven astronauts died in the midair explosion of the U.S. space shuttle Challenger. (A space shuttle is a craft that transports people and cargo between Earth and space.) Other American astronauts have lost their lives—in 1967 the three crewmembers of Apollo 1 (see entry) were killed in an accident on the ground, and in 2003 the shuttle Columbia broke apart over the western United States, killing the entire crew (see box on page 44). The Challenger mission, however, was the first to come to a fatal end while a vehicle was in space. Mourned by the nation, the loss of the crew and the shuttle resulted in an official investigation that called for far-ranging reforms in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The Challenger Crew

The seven-person Challenger crew was commanded by Francis Scobee (1939–1986), and the pilot was Michael...