Probably the most famous picture of the Challenger disaster. After the explosion 73 seconds into the mission, the two rocket boosters continued to climb, crisscrossing in the sky.
Gray smoke from the right side of the right solid rocket booster, not seen until tape of the launch was carefully watched following the disaster, indicates that there is a problem with an O-ring.
If a piece of solid rocket fuel had not miraculously sealed the gap left by the faulty O-ring, the shuttle would have exploded before it ever cleared the tower.
Unfortunately, the shuttle flew some extreme wind sheers that shock the stack and caused the temporary plug to come lose, dooming the mission. Here, at T + 58 seconds into the flight, flames can be seen coming out of the gap in the O-ring on the right side solid rocket booster.
The shuttle is enveloped in flaming liquid propellant after liquid oxygen tank ruptures at the 73 second mark.
The forward section of the fuselage, including the crew compartment, can be after the vehicle breaks up. After reaching a height of 65,000 feet - about 20 kilometers - the debris fell back into the ocean. During the fall, the remains of the shuttle stack reached terminal velocity of 207 miles - 333 kilometers - per hour. Even at that speed, it took about two minutes and forty five seconds to hit the water after breaking up. It was not the explosion but the impact with the ocean that proved fatal for the crew.
Millions of people were either present or had tuned in on TV to watch the Challenger launch, including thousands of school children nationwide. It was a shocking, heartbreaking event for everyone.
President Reagan rescheduled his State of the Union address and instead address the nation a different way, offering his condolences to the families who had lost loved ones.
Later that week, the president and the first lady attended a memorial service for the fallen Challenger Seven, as they were now being called, along with thousands of other mourners.
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