On December 22, 1985, space shuttle Challenger rolled out to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It marked the first time since the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz project that Pad 39B had hosted a launch vehicle. With space shuttle Columbia already sitting on adjacent Launch Pad 39A awaiting its own mission, the event marked the first time in history that space shuttles occupied both pads at Launch Complex 39 simultaneously. This historic scene encapsulated the height of NASA's operational ambitions as the agency prepared for its busiest manifest to date.
The Ambitious Schedule of 1986
According to NASA historical records, the agency planned up to 15 shuttle missions for 1986, including its first West Coast launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The second flight scheduled for that year was designated STS-51L, representing the 25th space shuttle flight overall and the 10th launch for Challenger.
The primary objective of the six-day mission was to deploy the TDRS-B communications satellite using a two-stage Inertial Upper Stage. In addition, the crew was tasked with deploying and later retrieving the Spartan-Halley astronomy satellite, a retrievable payload designed to study Halley’s Comet during its passage through the inner solar system.
Assembling the Seven-Member Crew
The crew for STS-51L included Commander Francis R. "Dick" Scobee, Pilot Michael J. Smith, Mission Specialists Ellison S. Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik, and Ronald E. McNair, as well as Hughes Corporation payload specialist Gregory B. Jarvis.
The mission also integrated the Teacher in Space program, announced by President Ronald Reagan in August 1984. More than 10,000 teachers submitted applications for the opportunity. NASA selected New Hampshire middle school teacher S. Christa McAuliffe as the primary participant, with Idaho educator Barbara R. Morgan assigned as her backup. McAuliffe was scheduled to conduct two live educational broadcasts for schoolchildren from orbit during the sixth day of the flight.
The 73-Second Malfunction and Investigation
On January 28, 1986, at 11:38 a.m. Eastern time, Challenger launched from Pad 39B after managers cleared the flight despite overnight freezing temperatures that caused ice accumulation on the launch tower. At 73 seconds after liftoff, flight controllers in Houston lost all telemetry from Challenger as a severe structural failure destroyed the vehicle.
President Reagan established the Rogers Presidential Commission to investigate the technical and organizational causes of the accident. The commission's findings led to comprehensive hardware redesigns and management reforms, resulting in a 32-month hiatus during which the space shuttle fleet remained grounded before resuming flights in September 1988.
An Educational Movement and Orbiting Relics
In 1986, the families of the STS-51L crew founded the Challenger Center for Space Science and Education, establishing a global network of learning facilities to engage students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Personal artifacts also carried the memory of the crew into space in later years. A soccer ball belonging to Ellison Onizuka, recovered from the ocean debris, was flown to the International Space Station by astronaut R. Shane Kimbrough in 2016, remaining in orbit for 173 days.
Backup participant Barbara Morgan continued her involvement with NASA, eventually joining the astronaut corps as a mission specialist and flying aboard shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-118 in August 2007.
In 2015, NASA and the astronaut families opened the "Forever Remembered" memorial at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. By displaying recovered orbiter debris alongside personal items from the crew members, the permanent exhibit grounds the historical impact of STS-51L for modern readers, preserving the hardware and human story of the mission.
AI-generated editorial illustration; not a documentary photograph.
Source: 35 Years Ago: Remembering Challenger and Her Crew
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