Space Shuttle mission STS-51-L was to be the 25th mission of the program. What made it special was to be lessons taught from space by a school teacher. On Jan. 28, 1986, 73 seconds after liftoff of the Space Shuttle Challenger, the crew and vehicle were lost. The commander for the flight was veteran astronaut Dick Scobee, an experienced test pilot who exhibited humility and admiration for his colleagues.
As clouds of smoke billowed into the air, the first Space Shuttle rose from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on April 12, 1981. The agency’s Space Shuttle team overcame years of setbacks and delays. The result was a first flight that met all the goals set for the mission. When astronauts John Young and Bob Crippen landed Columbia at Edwards Air Force Base two days later, it was called a “textbook flight.”
On Jan. 26, 2023, NASA paused agency wide to honor astronauts who perished in efforts to explore and utilize the space frontier. This year’s Day of Remembrance ceremonies focused on the STS-107 crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia who lost their lives when their orbiter broke apart during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003. The seven astronauts included Ilan Ramon, the first citizen from Israel to fly in space.