The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster Part II

 Recovery of debris and crew

Immediately after the disaster, the NASA Launch Recovery Director launched the two SRB recovery ships, MV Freedom Star and MV Liberty Star, to proceed to the impact area to recover debris, and requested the support of US military aircraft and ships. Owing to falling debris from the explosion, the RSO kept recovery forces from the impact area until 12:37 p.m. The size of the recovery operations increased to 12 aircraft and 8 ships by 7:00 p.m. Surface operations recovered debris from the orbiter and external tank. The surface recovery operations ended on February 7.

On January 31, the US Navy was tasked with submarine recovery operations.  The search efforts prioritized the recovery of the right SRB, followed by the crew compartment, and then the remaining payload, orbiter pieces, and ET.  The search for debris formally began on February 8 with the rescue and salvages ship USS Preserver, and eventually grew to sixteen ships, of which three were managed by NASA, four by the US Navy, one by the US Air Force, and eight by independent contractors.  The surface ships used side-scan sonar to make the initial search for debris and covered 486 square nautical miles (1,670 km2) at water depths between 70 feet (21 m) and 1,200 feet (370 m).  The sonar operations discovered 881 potential locations for debris, of which 187 pieces were later confirmed to be from the orbiter.

The debris from the SRBs was widely distributed due to the detonation of their linear-shaped charges. The identification of SRB material was primarily conducted by crewed submarines and submersibles. The vehicles were dispatched to investigate potential debris located during the search phase. Surface ships lifted the SRB debris with the help of technical divers and underwater remotely operated vehicles to attach the necessary slings to raise the debris with cranes.  The solid propellant in the SRBs posed a risk, as it became more volatile after being submerged. Recovered portions of the SRBs were kept wet during recovery, and their unused propellant was ignited once they were brought ashore. The failed joint on the right SRB was first located on sonar on March 1. Subsequent dives to 560 ft (170 m) by the NR-1 submarine on April 5 and the SEA-LINK I submersible on April 12 confirmed that it was the damaged field joint, and it was successfully recovered on April 13. Of the 196,726 lb (89,233 kg) of both SRB shells, 102,500 lb (46,500 kg) was recovered, another 54,000 lb (24,000 kg) was found but not recovered, and 40,226 lb (18,246 kg) was never found.

On March 7, Air Force divers identified potential crew compartment debris, which was confirmed the next day by divers from the USS Preserver. The damage to the crew compartment indicated that it had remained largely intact during the initial explosion but was extensively damaged when it impacted the ocean. The remains of the crew were badly damaged from impact and submersion and were not intact bodies. The USS Preserver made multiple trips to return debris and remains to port, and continued crew compartment recovery until April 4.  During the recovery of the remains of the crew, Jarvis's body floated away and was not located until April 15, several weeks after the other remains had been positively identified. Once remains were brought to port, pathologists from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology worked to identify the human remains, but could not determine the exact cause of death for any of them. Medical examiners in Brevard County disputed the legality of transferring human remains to US military officials to conduct autopsies, and refused to issue the death certificates; NASA officials ultimately released the death certificates of the crew members.

The IUS that would have been used to boost the orbit of the TDRS-B satellite was one of the first pieces of debris recovered.  There was no indication that there had been premature ignition of the IUS, which had been one of the suspected causes of the disaster.  Debris from the three SSMEs was recovered from February 14 to 28, and post-recovery analysis produced results consistent with functional engines suddenly losing their LH2 fuel supply. Deepwater recovery operations continued until April 29, with smaller-scale, shallow recovery operations continuing until August 29.  On December 17, 1996, two pieces of the orbiter were found at Cocoa Beach. On November 10, 2022, NASA announced that a 20-foot (6 m) piece of the shuttle had been found near the site of a destroyed World War II-era aircraft off the coast of Florida. The discovery was aired on the History Channel on November 22, 2022. Almost all recovered non-organic debris from Challenger is buried in Cape Canaveral Space Force Station missile silos at LC-31 and LC-32.

Funeral ceremonies

On April 29, 1986, the astronauts' remains were transferred on a C-141 Starlifter aircraft from Kennedy Space Center to the military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Their caskets were each draped with an American flag and carried past an honor guard followed by an astronaut escort. After the remains arrived at Dover Air Force Base, they were transferred to the families of the crew members. Scobee and Smith were buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Onizuka was buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. McNair was buried in Rest Lawn Memorial Park in Lake City, South Carolina, but his remains were later moved within the town to the Dr. Ronald E. McNair Memorial Park. Resnik was cremated and her ashes were scattered over the water. McAuliffe was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Concord, New Hampshire. Jarvis was cremated, and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean. The unidentified crew remains were buried at the Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial in Arlington on May 20, 1986.

Public response

White House response

President Ronald Reagan had been scheduled to give the 1986 State of the Union Address on January 28, 1986, the evening of the Challenger disaster. After a discussion with his aides, Reagan postponed the State of the Union and instead addressed the nation about the disaster from the Oval Office. On January 31, Ronald and Nancy Reagan traveled to the Johnson Space Center to speak at a memorial service honoring the crew members. During the ceremony, an Air Force band sang "God Bless America" as NASA T-38 Talon jets flew directly over the scene in the traditional missing-man formation.

Soon after the disaster, US politicians expressed concern that White House officials, including Chief of Staff Donald Regan and Communications Director Pat Buchanan, had pressured NASA to launch Challenger before the scheduled January 28 State of the Union address, because Reagan had planned to mention the launch in his remarks. In March 1986, the White House released a copy of the original State of the Union speech. In that speech, Reagan had intended to mention an X-ray experiment launched on Challenger and designed by a guest he had invited to the address, but he did not further discuss the Challenger launch. In the rescheduled State of the Union address on February 4, Reagan mentioned the deceased Challenger crew members and modified his remarks about the X-ray experiment as "launched and lost". In April 1986, the White House released a report that concluded there had been no pressure from the White House for NASA to launch Challenger before the State of the Union.

Media coverage

Nationally televised coverage of the launch and explosion was provided by CNN. To promote the Teacher in Space program with McAuliffe as a crewmember, NASA had arranged for many students in the US to view the launch live at school with their teachers. Press interest in the disaster increased in the following days; the number of reporters at KSC increased from 535 on the day of the launch to 1,467 reporters three days later. In the aftermath of the accident, NASA was criticized for not making key personnel available to the press. In the absence of information, the press published articles suggesting the external tank was the cause of the explosion. Until 2010, CNN's live broadcast of the launch and disaster was the only known on-location video footage from within range of the launch site. Additional amateur and professional recordings have since become publicly available.

Engineering case study

The Challenger accident has been used as a case study for subjects such as engineering safety, the ethics of whistleblowing, communications, and group decision-making, and the dangers of groupthink. Roger Boisjoly and Allan McDonald became speakers who advocated for responsible workplace decision-making and engineering ethics. Information designer Edward Tufte has argued that the Challenger accident was the result of poor communications and overly complicated explanations on the part of engineers and stated that showing the correlation of ambient air temperature and O-ring erosion amounts would have been sufficient to communicate the potential dangers of the cold-weather launch. Boisjoly contested this assertion and stated that the data presented by Tufte were not as simple or available as Tufte stated.

Reports

Rogers Commission Report

The Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, also known as the Rogers Commission after its chairman, was formed on February 6.  Its members were Chairman William P. Rogers, Vice Chairman Neil Armstrong, David Acheson, Eugene Covert, Richard Feynman, Robert Hotz, Donald Kutyna, Sally Ride, Robert Rummel, Joseph Sutter, Arthur Walker, Albert Wheelon, and Chuck Yeager.

The commission held hearings that discussed the NASA accident investigation, the Space Shuttle program, and the Morton Thiokol recommendation to launch despite O-ring safety issues. On February 15, Rogers released a statement that established the commission's changing role to investigate the accident independent of NASA due to concerns about the failures of the internal processes at NASA. The commission created four investigative panels to research the different aspects of the mission. The Accident Analysis Panel, chaired by Kutyna, used data from salvage operations and testing to determine the exact cause behind the accident. The Development and Production Panel, chaired by Sutter, investigated the hardware contractors and how they interacted with NASA. The Pre-Launch Activities Panel, chaired by Acheson, focused on the final assembly processes and pre-launch activities conducted at KSC. The Mission Planning and Operations Panel, chaired by Ride, investigated the planning that went into mission development, along with potential concerns over crew safety and pressure to adhere to a schedule. Over four months, the commission interviewed over 160 individuals, held at least 35 investigative sessions, and involved more than 6,000 NASA employees, contractors, and support personnel.  The commission published its report on June 6, 1986.

The commission determined that the cause of the accident was hot gas blowing past the O-rings in the field joint on the right SRB, and found no other potential causes for the disaster.  It attributed the accident to a faulty design of the field joint that was unacceptably sensitive to changes in temperature, dynamic loading, and the character of its materials.  The report was critical of NASA and Morton Thiokol, and emphasized that both organizations had overlooked evidence that indicated the potential danger with the SRB field joints. It noted that NASA accepted the risk of O-ring erosion without evaluating how it could potentially affect the safety of a mission.  The commission concluded that the safety culture and management structure at NASA were insufficient to properly report, analyze, and prevent flight issues.  It stated that the pressure to increase the rate of flights negatively affected the amount of training, quality control, and repair work that was available for each mission.

The commission published a series of recommendations to improve the safety of the Space Shuttle program. It proposed a redesign of the joints in the SRB that would prevent gas from blowing past the O-rings. It also recommended that the program's management be restructured to keep project managers from being pressured to adhere to unsafe organizational deadlines, and should include astronauts to address crew safety concerns better. It proposed that an office for safety be established reporting directly to the NASA administrator to oversee all safety, reliability, and quality assurance functions in NASA programs. Additionally, the commission addressed issues with overall safety and maintenance for the orbiter, and it recommended the addition of the means for the crew to escape during controlled gliding flight.

During a televised hearing on February 11, Feynman demonstrated the loss of rubber's elasticity in cold temperatures using a glass of cold water and a piece of rubber, for which he received media attention. Feynman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, advocated for harsher criticism of NASA in the report and repeatedly disagreed with Rogers. He threatened to remove his name from the report unless it included his personal observations on reliability, which appeared in Appendix F. In the appendix, he lauded the engineering and software accomplishments in the program's development, but he argued that multiple components, including the avionics and SSMEs in addition to the SRBs, were more dangerous and accident-prone than original NASA estimates had indicated.

US House Committee report

The US House Committee on Science and Technology conducted an investigation of the Challenger disaster and released a report on October 29, 1986. The committee, which had authorized the funding for the Space Shuttle program, reviewed the findings of the Rogers Commission as part of its investigation. The committee agreed with the Rogers Commission that the failed SRB field joint was the cause of the accident and that NASA and Morton Thiokol failed to act despite numerous warnings of the potential dangers of the SRB. The committee's report further emphasized safety considerations of other components and recommended a risk management review for all critical systems.

NASA response

SRB redesign

In response to the commission's recommendation, NASA initiated a redesign of the SRB, later named the redesigned solid rocket motor (RSRM), which was supervised by an independent oversight group. The redesigned joint included a capture feature on the tang around the interior wall of the clevis to prevent joint rotation. The space between the capture feature and the clevis was sealed with another O-ring. The capture feature reduced the potential of joint rotation to 15% of that which had occurred during the disaster. Should joint rotation occur, any rotation that reduced the O-ring seal on one side of the clevis wall would increase it on the other side? Additionally, heaters were installed to maintain consistent, higher temperatures of the O-rings.  The RSRM was first tested on August 30, 1987. In April and August 1988, the RSRM was tested with intentional flaws that allowed hot gas to penetrate the field joint. These tests permitted the engineers to evaluate whether the improved field joint prevented joint rotation. Following the successful tests, the RSRM was certified to fly on the Space Shuttle.

Space Shuttle modifications

In addition to the SRBs, NASA increased the safety standards of other Space Shuttle program components. The critical items lists and failure modes for the SSMEs were updated, along with 18 hardware changes. The maximum thrust of the SSMEs was limited to 104%, with 109% only allowed in an abort scenario.  The landing gear was updated to improve its steering and handling abilities while the Space Shuttle was landing.  NASA implemented an escape option in which the astronauts would jettison the side hatch and extend a pole out of the orbiter; they would slide down the pole to avoid hitting the orbiter as bailed out before they activated their parachutes. The orbiter's software was modified to maintain stable flight while all of the flight crew left the controls to escape.  This escape method would not have saved the crew in the Challenger disaster but was added in the event of another emergency.

Safety office

In 1986 NASA created a new Office of Safety, Reliability, and Quality Assurance, headed by a NASA associate administrator who reported directly to the NASA administrator, as the commission had specified. Former Challenger flight director Greene became chief of the Safety Division of the directorate. After the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) concluded that NASA had not set up a "truly independent" office for safety oversight.  The CAIB concluded that the ineffective safety culture that had resulted in the Challenger accident was also responsible for the subsequent disaster.

Teacher in Space

The Teacher in Space program, which McAuliffe had been selected for, was canceled in 1990 as a result of the Challenger disaster. In 1998, NASA replaced Teacher in Space with the Educator Astronaut Project, which differed in that it required the teachers to become professional astronauts trained as mission specialists, rather than short-term payload specialists who would return to their classrooms following their spaceflight. Barbara Morgan, who had been the backup teacher for McAuliffe, was selected to be part of NASA Astronaut Group 17 and flew on STS-118.

Return to flight

The projected launch schedule of 24 per year was criticized by the Rogers Commission as an unrealistic goal that created unnecessary pressure on NASA to launch missions.  In August 1986, President Reagan approved the construction of an orbiter, which would later be named Endeavour, to replace Challenger. Construction of Endeavour began in 1987 and was completed in 1990, and it first flew on STS-49 in May 1992. He also announced that the program would no longer carry commercial satellite payloads and that these would be launched using commercial expendable launch vehicles. These commercial payloads were reallocated from the Space Shuttle program to end the dependence on a single launch vehicle and limit the pressure on NASA to launch crewed missions to satisfy its customers.

The Space Shuttle fleet was grounded for two years and eight months while the program underwent investigation, redesign, and restructuring. On September 29, 1988, Discovery launched on STS-26 mission from LC-39B with a crew of five veteran astronauts. Its payload was TDRS-3, which was a substitute for the satellite lost with Challenger. The launch tested the redesigned boosters, and the crew wore pressure suits during the ascent and reentry. The mission was a success, and the program resumed flying.

Legacy

In 2004, President George W. Bush conferred posthumous Congressional Space Medals of Honor to all 14 crew members killed in the Challenger and Columbia accidents. An unpainted decorative oval in the Brumidi Corridors of the United States Capitol was finished with a portrait depicting the crew by Charles Schmidt in 1987. The scene was painted on canvas and then applied to the wall. The "Forever Remembered" exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex opened in July 2015 and includes a display of a 12-foot (3.7 m) section of Challenger's recovered fuselage. The exhibit was opened by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden along with family members of the crew.  A tree for each astronaut was planted in NASA's Astronaut Memorial Grove at the Johnson Space Center, along with trees for each astronaut from the Apollo 1 and Columbia disasters. Seven asteroids were named after the crew members: 3350 Scobee, 3351 Smith, 3352 McAuliffe, 3353 Jarvis, 3354 McNair, 3355 Onizuka, and 3356 Resnik. The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on March 26, 1986 (M.P.C. 10550). In 1988, seven craters on the far side of the Moon, within the Apollo Basin, were named after the astronauts by the IAU. The Soviet Union named two craters on Venus after McAuliffe and Resnik. The landing site of the Opportunity Mars rover was named Challenger Memorial Station.

Several memorials have been established in honor of the Challenger disaster. The public Peers Park in Palo Alto, California, features the Challenger Memorial Grove including redwood trees grown from seeds carried aboard Challenger in 1985. Schools and streets have been renamed to include the names of the crew or Challenger. In 1990, a 1/10 scale replica of Challenger in liftoff position was erected in the Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles, California. Challenger Point is a mountain peak of the Sangre de Cristo Range. The McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, a science museum and planetarium in Concord, New Hampshire, is named in honor of McAuliffe, a Concord High School teacher, and Alan Shepard, who was from Derry, New Hampshire. The crew's families established the Challenger Center for Space Science Education as an educational non-profit organization.

An American flag, later named the Challenger flag, was carried aboard the Challenger. It was sponsored by Boy Scout Troop 514 of Monument, Colorado, and was recovered intact, still sealed in its plastic container. Onizuka had included a soccer ball with his personal effects that was recovered and later flown to the International Space Station aboard Soyuz Expedition 49 by American astronaut Shane Kimbrough. It is on display at Clear Lake High School in Houston, which was attended by Onizuka's children.

The 1986 motion picture Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was dedicated to the crew of the Challenger with an opening message which stated: "The cast and crew of Star Trek wish to dedicate this film to the men and women of the spaceship Challenger whose courageous spirit shall live to the 23rd century and beyond..."

In media

Books

In the years immediately after the Challenger disaster, several books were published describing the factors and causes of the accident and the subsequent investigation and changes. In 1987, Malcolm McConnell, a journalist and a witness of the disaster, published Challenger–A Major Malfunction: A True Story of Politics, Greed, and the Wrong Stuff. McConnell's book was criticized for arguing a conspiracy involving NASA Administrator Fletcher awarding the contract to Morton Thiokol because it was from his home state of Utah. The book Prescription for Disaster: From the Glory of Apollo to the Betrayal of the Shuttle by Joseph Trento was also published in 1987, arguing that the Space Shuttle program had been a flawed and politicized program from its inception. In 1988, Feynman's memoir, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?” Further Adventures of a Curious Character, was published. The latter half of the book discusses his involvement in the Rogers Commission and his relationship with Kutyna.

Books were published long after the disaster. In 1996, Diane Vaughan published The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA, which argues that NASA's structure and mission, rather than just Space Shuttle program management, created a climate of risk acceptance that resulted in the disaster. Also in 1996, Claus Jensen published No Downlink: A Dramatic Narrative about the Challenger Accident and Our Time which primarily discusses the development of rocketry before the disaster, and was criticized for its reliance on secondary sources with little original research conducted for the book. In 2009, Allan McDonald published his memoir written with space historian James Hansen, Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster, which focuses on his personal involvement in the launch, disaster, investigation, and return to flight, and is critical of NASA and Morton Thiokol leadership for agreeing to launch Challenger despite engineers' warnings about the O-rings.

Film and television

The ABC television movie titled Challenger was broadcast on February 25, 1990. It stars Barry Bostwick as Scobee and Karen Allen as McAuliffe. The movie is critical of NASA and positively portrays the engineers who argued against launching. The movie was criticized by the widows of Smith, McNair, and Onizuka as an inaccurate portrayal of events. A BBC docudrama titled The Challenger Disaster was broadcast on March 18, 2013. It starred William Hurt as Feynman and portrayed the investigation into the causes of the disaster. A film directed by Nathan VonMinden, The Challenger Disaster, was released on January 25, 2019, and depicts fictional characters participating in the decision process to launch.

The four-part docuseries Challenger: The Final Flight, created by Steven Leckart and Glen Zipper, was released by Netflix on September 16, 2020. It uses interviews with NASA and Morton Thiokol personnel to argue against their flawed decision-making which produced a preventable disaster.

The first episode of the Australian television drama The Newsreader, broadcast on August 15, 2021, depicts the disaster from the perspective of the television industry, specifically the journalists and crew within, and of, an Australian television newsroom at the time; a co-lead character's hosting of a newsflash weaving in with an overarching background storyline about the shift in news presentation from serious to that of allowing emotion into its delivery.

The first episode of Season 6 of the television drama series This Is Us, titled "The Challenger" features the incident of the explosion in 1986 in the flashback scenes.

Notes

 The RS-25 engines had several improvements to enhance reliability and power. During the development program, Rocketdyne determined that the engine was capable of safe, reliable operation at 104% of the originally specified thrust. To keep the engine thrust values consistent with previous documentation and software, NASA kept the originally specified thrust at 100% but had the RS-25 operate at higher thrust.