Title -  Launch of Ill-Fated Space Shuttle Challenger
 
Description -  Space Shuttle Challenger launches from launchpad 39B at the start of STS-51-L at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Planned as the first Teacher in Space Project in addition to observing Halley's Comet for six days, the mission never flew past orbit; a structural failure during its ascent phase 73 seconds after launch from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 on January 28, 1986, killed all seven crew members—Commander Dick Scobee, Pilot Michael J. Smith, Mission Specialists Ellison S. Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik and Ronald E. McNair, and Payload Specialists Gregory Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe—and destroyed the orbiter.
Immediately after the disaster, NASA convened the Rogers Commission to determine the cause of the explosion. The failure of an O-ring seal on the starboard Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) was determined to have caused the shuttle to break-up in flight. Space Shuttle flights were suspended for 32 months while the hazards with the shuttle were addressed. The Space Shuttle program resumed with STS-26, launched two years after the accident.
 
Description Source -  NASA
 
Year -  January 28, 1986