The two solid rocket boosters flew in different directions as the external fuel tank became a fireball.(AP: Bruce Weaver / File) Forty years ago, the Challenger space shuttle disintegrated just after ...

Forty years ago, the NASA space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven crew members. Among the seven crew members were five NASA astronauts, as well as a payload ...

It was the morning of Jan. 28, 1986, when the Space Shuttle Challenger launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida — a moment that would soon become the nation’s worst tragedy ...

Forty years ago, a space shuttle exploded. A teacher and her crewmates lost their lives. A generation of schoolchildren watched it happen live. I was one of them. I was 10 when the Challenger ascended ...

Bob Ebeling was anxious and angry as he drove to work on the morning of Jan. 28, 1986. He kept thinking about the space shuttle Challenger, cradled on a Florida launchpad 2,000 miles away. Ebeling ...

Smoke billows in the sky above the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger on Jan. 28, 1986. Just one day before the Challenger space shuttle exploded over ...

Five astronauts and two payload specialists make up the STS 51-L crew, scheduled to fly aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in January of 1986. Crewmembers are (left to right, front row) astronauts ...

This browser does not support the Video element. Seven astronauts were killed in the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster. Because a teacher was aboard, millions of schoolchildren watched the event ...

On Jan. 28, 1986 — 40 years ago Wednesday — America watched in horror as the nation’s first civilian space traveler and six NASA astronauts died in the explosion of the shuttle Challenger. Challenger ...

On Jan. 28, 1986, NASA’s 25th space shuttle mission, Challenger, left the launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Seventy-three seconds into... Lessons and failures from the Challenger space shuttle ...