The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was a fatal incident on January 28, 1986, in the United States space program where the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. It was the first fatal accident involving an American spacecraft in flight. The mission, designated STS-51-L, was the tenth flight for the orbiter Challenger and the twenty-fifth flight of the Space Shuttle fleet. The crew was scheduled to deploy a communications satellite and study Halley's Comet while they were in orbit, in addition to taking school teacher Christa McAuliffe into space. The latter resulted in a higher than usual media interest and coverage of the mission; the launch, and subsequently the disaster, was screened live in many schools across the United States. The spacecraft disintegrated 46,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39 a.m. EST .
'It was better for them to die unexpectedly': NASA expert reveals Columbia shuttle crew were not told of problem with re-entry as families mark 10-year anniversary