On April 29, 1985, the European Space Agency's Spacelab launched the space shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51B. Discover more space history 👉 https://space-com.visitlink.me/Lztgyj) This was the second time the Spacelab went to space and the first time it flew in a fully operational configuration. Spacelab pallets had flown to space on three previous shuttle missions, but this was the first time that the entire laboratory was used to conduct research in microgravity. Spacelab provided a platfo

At 11:38 am EST on #ThisDayInHistory in 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Seventy-three seconds later, the shuttle broke up into fire and smoke. All seven astronauts on board the Challenger were killed: Christa McAuliffe (a New Hampshire teacher chosen for NASA’s 1985 Teacher in Space project), Dick Scobee, Ellison Onizuka (first Asian American astronaut and first astronaut of Japanese descent), Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik, Michael J. Smith, and Ronald