5 important space tragedies

5 important space tragedies

1986: Challenger’s final flight

The Challenger Space Shuttle had successfully become the second to fly to space, but on its tenth mission, disaster struck. 73 seconds after liftoff, the shuttle broke apart due to cold weather impacting the rocket’s rubber seals. These sealed the fuel segments inside the rocket, but in the extreme cold the rubber seals became too stiff, resulting in a fuel leak. The resulting investigation recommended that NASA install and improve safety features on the shuttles as well as its management of future missions.

(Image credit: NASA/ Wikimedia Commons)

Published at Fri, 19 Mar 2021 09:45:40 +0000