![]() These may be the final years of the International Space Station (ISS). The mission, called Axiom 2 (Ax-2), will carry a history-making NASA astronaut, a businessman from Tennessee, and the first two Saudi nationals to reach space since 1985. This weekend, Axiom Space will send its second crew to Earth orbit. The shuttle program resumed on Septemwith Space Shuttle Discovery. Technical changes were made to the shuttle, and NASA worked to change its workforce culture to become more transparent. The Challenger disaster grounded NASA's space shuttle program for about three years, but some key changes were made once it restarted. How did the Challenger disaster change NASA? The report also made note of the flawed internal structural of NASA: "That testimony reveals failures in communication that resulted in a decision to launch 51-L based on incomplete and sometimes misleading information, a conflict between engineering data and management judgments, and a NASA management structure that permitted internal flight safety problems to bypass key Shuttle managers. The Commission later found out that NASA managers had known about the faulty design of the O-rings since 1977-but they never did anything about it. ![]() But they didn't." The night before the launch, Ebeling told his wife that Challenger would blow up.Īfter the disaster, The Rogers Commission was created to investigate and determine the cause of Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. "They had their mind set on going up and proving to the world they were right and they knew what they were doing. "NASA ruled the launch," Ebeling told United Press International in 2016. The NASA ground team of the Challenger launch. ![]() NASA reportedly brushed off his fears, and while Thiokol's management team initially backed their engineers, they later reversed course and told NASA to proceed with the launch. In fact, Allan McDonald, former director of the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Motor Project for Morton-Thiokol, the contractor behind the design of the O-rings, had previously raised concerns that the below-freezing temperatures could negatively impact the integrity of the rockets' O-rings.Įngineer Bob Ebeling also voiced his concerns about the O-rings, and prior to the failed launch, he and a group of engineers held a meeting with NASA managers from Kennedy Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center where they told NASA to postpone the flight. Sadly, it was known that O-rings could fail. Could the Challenger disaster have been prevented? (Many outlets at the time incorrectly reported that the craft had exploded.) The cabin that the crew was inside remained intact throughout the craft's disintegration, but two minutes and forty-five seconds after breakup, the cabin hit the ocean surface at about 207 mph, which was "far in excess of the structural limits of the crew compartment or crew survivability levels," as this archived version of the report on the deaths of the crew explains. Structural failure occurred when pressurized burning gas from the solid rocket motor reached the external fuel tank, which then disintegrated, leading to Challenger being ripped apart. The morning of the 1986 space flight was much colder than previous Challenger launches, and the primary O-ring became cold and hard and couldn't seal properly. That seal helps to prevent liquids or gases from escaping. The Challenger accident was caused by a design flaw in the spacecraft's O-rings, which are mechanical gaskets that are designed to be seated in a groove and then compressed in between two surfaces, creating a seal at the interface. What caused the Space Shuttle Challenger accident in 1986? Here's what you need to know about the 1986 Challenger disaster. The series will include rare archival footage and interviews with former NASA officials, engineers, and the crew's surviving family members.Īnd while the disaster has remained ingrained in the public's mind for the 34 years since it occurred, many still don't know what exactly caused the incident. Now, Netflix is examining the events leading up to and after the disaster in a new four-part docuseries, Challenger: The Final Flight. The incident forever changed the way NASA operated its space shuttle program. The 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was a shocking tragedy, and it was made all the more devastating due to the fact that the spacecraft's disintegration was broadcast on live TV.
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