Challenger was the second operational orbiter in NASA's Space Shuttle fleet, built as a test vehicle and then converted for spaceflight, and it made its first flight on mission STS-6 in April 1983. The crew, led by Paul Weitz, deployed the first Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, and Story Musgrave and Donald Peterson performed the first spacewalk of the Shuttle program. Challenger flew nine missions in total, including those carrying Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, and Guion Bluford, the first African American in space. The orbiter was destroyed on 28 January 1986, shortly after liftoff on mission STS-51-L, killing all seven crew members, including the teacher Christa McAuliffe. The accident was traced to a failure of an O-ring seal in a solid rocket booster and led to a long grounding of the fleet.
Before and after
- 1983Muhammad Yunus founds Grameen Bank
- 1983Kary Mullis invents the polymerase chain reaction
- 1 January 1983The Internet is born as ARPANET adopts TCP/IP
- 26 January 1983Launch of IRAS
- 4 April 1983First flight of Challenger
- 18 April 1983Founding of Disney Channel
- from 5 June 1983 to 9 January 2005Second Sudanese Civil War
- 19 June 1983Construction of BC Place
- 21 June 1983Birth of Edward Snowden
More in Science & technology
- 25 April 1953Watson and Crick publish the structure of DNA
- 1973Mobile phone
- 20 November 1985Creation of Microsoft Windows
- 1996Discovery of copernicium
- August 2003Discovery of moscovium
- 2006Discovery of nihonium
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.