40 years ago, the space shuttle Challenger launched for the first time. His tenth flight ended in tragedy – News

The era of American space shuttles began in April 1981 with Columbia, which completed 28 flights and spent 300 days in space until its demise in 2003 (the space shuttle exploded just before landing and also killed the seven-member crew).

Challenger was originally designed only as a test device, on which technicians verified the effect of vibrations on the design of machines. Later, the American space agency NASA decided to convert the machine into a full-fledged space shuttle. In July 1982, after the necessary modifications, it was put into service as the second machine. It was named after the British corvette HMS Challenger, which took part in the first worldwide oceanographic expedition in the 1870s.

After its first space flight in 1983, which lasted five days, Challenger became NASA’s flagship space shuttle, flying 85 percent of all missions in 1983 and 1984. Along with the space shuttle Discovery, it was rebuilt to carry Centaur G rockets into orbit.

During its nearly three-year career, the Challenger transported the first US astronaut into space (Sally Ride on June 18, 1983) and the first person to walk into space without a fixed connection to the ship (astronauts Bruce McCandless and Robert Stewart on February 7, 1984).

Challenger’s final flight, designated STS 51-L, was the shuttle’s 25th flight into space. It was supposed to start already on January 22, 1986, but the start was postponed several times.

Even on the fateful January 28, it didn’t look promising. The overnight frost that covered part of the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida with icicles posed a danger.

Nevertheless, the crew – commander Francis Scobee, pilot Michael Smith, flight specialists Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair and Allison Onizuka, expert Gregory Jarvis and teacher Christa McAuliffe – got into the plane.

Teacher McAuliffe (supposed to be the first teacher in space) won a NASA audition to bring the American space program closer to the public.

At 11:38 a.m. local time on January 28, 1986, the cosmic behemoth detached itself from the earth. The few puffs of gray smoke that appeared from the right solid fuel auxiliary engine disappeared in a swirl of flames shooting from the jets of the starting machine.

The maneuver went as usual and everything seemed fine. But after 73 seconds of flight, a massive explosion tore the shuttle to pieces. The cabin with the crew fell from a height of about 14 kilometers into the sea.

As possible causes, experts have gradually ruled out sabotage, a defect in the launch device, the main fuel tank and the shuttle itself. The center of attention was a pair of auxiliary rocket stages, so-called boosters, which help the machine in the initial phase of flight.

The cause of the accident was identified as a leak in the connection of two segments of the right booster. Analysis of the debris and film footage showed that a flame shot out of the side of the booster rocket, damaging the main tank and causing the explosion.

The Challenger disaster marked an almost three-year hiatus in US space shuttle launches. Space shuttle Endeavor was built as a replacement for Challenger, which flew into space for the first time in 1992.

The end of the oldest vessel of the American space fleet, the space shuttle Columbia, which killed six Americans and the first Israeli in space, Ilan Ramon, on February 1, 2003, stopped the flights of the remaining three space shuttles for two and a half years.

The space shuttle is a reusable spaceship (in English Space Shuttle, something like a space shuttle), which, according to the original plans, was supposed to start the era of regular space travel, i.e. several times a month. Due to limited funding, roughly four flights per year have taken place in the 30 years of shuttle service.

In addition to Columbia and Challenger, NASA sent space shuttles Discovery (first in August 1984), Atlantis (October 1985) and Endeavor (May 1992) into space.

Space shuttles have delivered dozens of satellites and scientific equipment into orbit, including the Hubble telescope, the Chandra X-ray observatory, and the Magellan, Galileo and Odysseus probes. They flew to the Russian space station Mir, and since 1998 have transported material and crew to the International Space Station (ISS).