Safety Rethink: The Challenger Accident (1986)

Abstract

On the exceptionally cold Florida morning of January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger was launched on what should have become its tenth mission. As the vehicle speeded up across clear blue skies, a design flaw in the solid rocket boosters led to the right-hand one developing a breach, spewing hot exhaust onto its attachment to the large orange external fuel tank. This bracket gave way under the heat, the booster broke loose and punctured the tank, leading to an explosion-like ignition of the now dispersed hydrogen-oxygen mixture. The orbiter Challenger disintegrated under aerodynamic forces while exiting the fireball. When pieces of the shuttle slammed into the surface of the Atlantic Ocean a number of minutes later, the crew cabin, which had escaped the inflagration relatively unharmed, violently collapsed, killing the seven-astronaut crew [1]. The American space programme had lost its first crew during a mission and it was in fact the first loss of life during the ascent phase of any spaceflight.