You WON'T BELIEVE The Final Words Of The Challenger Crew!

the view of the shuttle on the Launchpad was simply breathtaking as it always is 2 1 Z and lift off the final lift off of ATL January 28th 1986 marked the darkest moment in the history of space exploration a moment that would shatter dreams Crush spirits and leave an indelible scar on the collective psyche of a Nation as the Challenger space shuttle soared into the sky the world watched in awe mesmerized by the spectac of technological prowess but in a heartbeat the spectacle turned to horror and unbearable tragedy what Sinister sequence of events led to the catastrophic failure of the Challenger solid rocket booster and how could a disaster of this magnitude occur despite the presence of warning signs join us as we uncover the Challenger disaster details that will chill you to the Bone what caused the space shuttle Challenger tragedy on January 28 1986 the space shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight killing all seven crew members aboard the spacecraft disintegrated 46,000 ft above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cape Canaveral Florida at 11:39 a.m. EST it was the first fatal accident involving an American spacecraft while in Flight the mission designated sts-51l was the 10th flight for the Orbiter and the 25th Flight of the Space Shuttle Fleet the crew was scheduled to deploy a Communications satellite and study hi's Comet while they were in orbit in addition to taking school teacher Christa mcauliff into space under the teacher in Space Program the latter task resulted in a higher than usual media interest in and coverage of the mission the launch and subsequent disaster were seen live in many schools across the United States the cause of the disaster was the failure of the primary and secondary redundant o-ring seals in a joint in the shuttle's right solid rocket booster SRB the record low temperatures on the morning of the launch had stiffened the rubber O-rings reducing their ability to seal the joints shortly after liftoff the seals were breached and hot pressurized gas from within the SRB leaked through the joint and burned through the AFT attachment strut connecting it to the external propellant tank then into the tank itself the collapse of the et's internal structures and the rotation of the SRB that followed through the shuttle stack traveling at a speed of Mack 1.92 into a direction that allowed aerodynamic forces to tear the Orbiter apart both srbs detached from the now destroyed ET and continued to fly uncontrollably until the range safety officer destroyed them the crew compartment human remains and many other fragments from the shuttle were recovered from the ocean floor after a 3mon search and Recovery operation the exact timing of the deaths of the crew is unknown but several crew members are thought to have survived the initial breakup of the spacecraft the Orbiter had no Escape system and the impact of the crew compartment at terminal velocity with the ocean surface was too violent to be survivable the disaster resulted in a 32 month Hiatus in the space shuttle program President Ronald Reagan created the Rogers commission to investigate the accident the commission criticized NASA's organizational culture and decision-making processes that had contributed to the accident what critical warning signs did NASA engineers and managers ignore in the years and days leading up to the Challenger disaster and what significant changes were made to ensure the safety of future missions test data since 1977 demonstrated a potentially catastrophic flaw in the sb's O-rings but neither NASA nor SRB manufacturer Morton thol had addressed this known defect NASA managers also disregard guarded Engineers warnings about the dangers of launching in cold temperatures and did not report these technical concerns to their superiors as a result of This Disaster NASA established the office of safety reliability and quality assurance and arranged for deployment of commercial satellites from Expendable launch Vehicles rather than from a crude Orbiter to replace Challenger the construction of a new space shuttle Orbiter Endeavor was approved in 198 87 and the new Orbiter first flew in 1992 subsequent missions were launched with redesigned srbs and their Crews wore pressurized suits during ascent and re-entry the launch of the Space Shuttle the space shuttle was a partially reusable spacecraft operated by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA it flew for the first time in April 1981 and was used to conduct inorbit research and deploy commercial and scientific payloads at launch it consisted of the Orbiter which contained the crew and payload the external tank and the two solid rocket boosters srbs the Orbiter was a reusable winged vehicle that launched vertically and landed as a glider five orbiters were built during the space shuttle program Challenger 099 was the second Orbiter constructed after its conversion from a structural test article the Orbiter contained The Crew compartment where the crew predominantly lived and worked throughout a mission three space shuttle main engines ssmes were mounted at the AFT end of the Orbiter and provided thrust during launch Once In Space the crew maneuvered using the two smaller aft mounted orbital maneuvering system OMS engines when it launched the Orbiter was connected to the ET which held the fuel for the ssmes the ET consisted of a larger tank for liquid hydrogen lh2 and a smaller tank for liquid oxygen lox both of which were required for the ssmes to oper operate after its fuel had been expended the ET separated from the Orbiter and re-entered the atmosphere where it would break apart during re-entry and its pieces would land in the Indian or Pacific Ocean two solid rocket boosters srbs built by thool at the time of the disaster provided the majority of thrust at liftoff they were connected to the external tank and burned for the first 2 minutes of flight the srbs separated from the Orbiter once they had expanded their fuel and fell into the Atlantic ocean under a parachute NASA retrieval teams recovered the srbs and returned them to the Kennedy Space Center KSC where they were disassembled and their components reused on future flights each SRB was constructed in four main sections at the factory in Utah and transported to KSC then assembled in the Vehicle Assembly Building at KSC with three tang and cleavus field joints each joint consisting of a Tang from the upper segment fitting into the clevys of the lower segment each field joint was sealed with two approximately 20ft diameter viton rubber orings around the circumference of the SRB and had a cross-section diameter of 0.280 in the orings were required to contain the hot high pressure gases produced by the burning solid propellant and allowed for the srbs to be rated for crude missions the two O-rings were configured to create a double boore seal and the gap between segments was filled with putty when the motor was running this configuration was designed to compress air in the Gap against the upper oring pressing it against the ceiling surfaces of its seat on the SRB critical items list the orings were listed as criticality 1 R which indicated that an O-ring failure could result in the destruction of the vehicle and loss of life but it was considered a redundant system due to the secondary aing evaluations of the SRB designs evaluations of the proposed SRB design in the early 1970s and field joint testing showed that the wide tolerances between the mated Parts allowed the orings to be extruded from their seats rather than compressed this Extrusion was judged to be acceptable by NASA and Morton thol despite concerns of NASA's Engineers a 1977 test showed that up to 0.052 Ines of joint rotation occurred during the simulated internal pressure of a launch joint rot which occurred when the tang and cleis bent away from each other reduced the pressure on the orings which weakened their seals and made it possible for combustion gases to erode the O-rings NASA Engineers suggested that the field joints should be redesigned to include shims around the orings but they received no response in 1980 the NASA verification and certification committee requested further tests on joint Integrity to include testing in the temperature range of 40 to 90° F and with only a single oing installed the NASA program managers decided that their current level of testing was sufficient and further testing was not required in December 1982 the critical items list was updated to indicate that the secondary oing could not provide a backup to the primary oing as it would not necessarily form a seal in the event of joint rotation the O-rings were redesignated as criticality one removing the r to indicate it was no longer considered a redundant system the first occurrence of inflight o-ring erosion occurred on the right SRB on sts2 in November 1981 in August 1984 a postflight inspection of the left SRB on STS 41d revealed that soot had blown past the primary oring and was found in between the orings although there was no damage to the secondary oring this indicated that the primary oring was not creating a reliable seal and was allowing hot gas to pass the amount of oing erosion was insufficient to prevent the O-ring from ceiling and investigators concluded that the soot between the O-rings resulted from non-uniform pressure at the time of ignition the January 1985 launch of STS 51c was the coldest space shuttle launch to date the air temperature was 62° F at the time of launch and the calculated oring temperature was 53 de F post-flight analysis revealed erosion in primary O-rings in both srbs Morton thool Engineers determined that the cold temperatures caused a loss of flexibility in the orings that decreased their ability to seal the field joints which allowed hot gas and soot to flow past the primary oring o-ring erosion occurred on all but one of the Space Shuttle flights in 1985 and erosion of both the primary and secondary orings occurred on STS 51b to correct the issues with with oring erosion engineers at Morton thol led by Alan McDonald and Roger booli proposed a redesigned field joint that introduced a metal lip to limit movement in the joint they also recommended adding a spacer to provide additional thermal protection and using an oring with a larger cross-section in July 1985 Morton thol ordered redesigned SRB casings with the intention of using already manufactured casings for the upcoming launches until the redesigned cases were available the following year the space shuttle mission the space shuttle mission named STS 51l was the 25th space shuttle flight and the 10th flight of Challenger the crew was announced on January 27 1985 and was commanded by dick scobby Michael Smith was assigned as the pilot and the mission Specialists were Ellison onzuka Judith Resnik and Ronald McNair the two payload special ists were Gregory Jarvis who was assigned to conduct research for the Hughes aircraft company and Christa mcauliff who flew as part of the teacher in Space Project the primary mission of the Challenger crew was to use an inertial upper stage IUS to deploy a tracking and data relay satellite tdrs named TDSB that would have been part of a constellation to enable constant communication with orbiting spacecraft the crew also planned to study Hal's Comet as it passed near the Sun and deploy and retrieve a Spartan satellite the mission was originally scheduled for July 1985 but was delayed to November and then to January 1986 the mission was scheduled to launch on January 22nd but was delayed until January 28th decision to launch the space shuttle the air temperature on January 28 was predicted to be a record low for a space shuttle launch the air temperature was forecast to drop to 18 18° fah overnight before rising to 22° F at 6:00 a.m. and 26° fah at the scheduled launch time of 9:38 a.m. based upon aing erosion that had occurred in warmer launches Morton thool Engineers were concerned over the effect the record cold temperatures would have on the seal provided by the SRB orings for the launch Cecil Houston the manager of the KSC Office of the Marshall space flight center set up a conference call on on the evening of January 27 to discuss the safety of the launch Morton thol Engineers expressed their concerns about the effect of low temperatures on the resilience of the rubber orings as the colder temperatures lowered the elasticity of the rubber orings the engineers feared that the orings would not be extruded to form a seal at the time of launch the engineers argued that they did not have enough data to determine whether the orings would seal at temperatures colder than 53 degrees Fahrenheit the coldest launch of the space shuttle to date Morton thol employees Robert Lund the vice president of engineering and Joe kilminster the vice president of the space booster programs recommended against launching until the temperature was above 53 degre fah the teleconference held a recess to allow for private discussion amongst Morton thol management when it resumed Morton thol leadership had changed their opinion and stated that the evidence presented on the failure of the orings was inconclusive and that there was a substantial margin in the event of a failure or erosion they stated that their decision was to proceed with the launch Morton thol leadership submitted a recommendation for launch and the teleconference ended Lawrence Malloy the NASA SRB project manager called Arnold Aldrich the NASA Mission management team leader to discuss the launch decision and weather concerns but did not mention the aing discussion the two agreed to proceed with the launch an overnight measurement taken by the KSC ice team recorded the left SRB was 25° fah and the right SRB was 8° fah these measurements were recorded for engineering data and not reported because the temperature of the srbs was not part of the launch commit criteria in addition to its effect on the orings the cold temperatures caused ice to form on the fixed service structure to keep pipes from freezing water was slowly run from the system it could not be entirely drained because of the upcoming launch as a result ice formed from 240 ft down in the freezing temperatures engineers at Rockwell International which manufactured the Orbiter were concerned that ice would be violently thrown during launch and could potentially damage the Orbiter thermal protection system or be aspirated into one of the engines Roco Patron the head of Rockwell's space Transportation division and his team determined that the potential damage from ice made the mission unsafe to fly Arnold Aldrich consulted with engineers at KSC and the Johnson Space Center JSC who advised him that ice did not threaten the safety of the Orbiter and he decided to proceed with the launch the launch was delayed for an additional hour to allow more ice to melt the ice team performed an inspection at T20 minutes which indicated that the ice was melting and Challenger was cleared to launch at 11:38 a.m. EST with an air temperature of 36° fah liftoff and initial Ascent at t+ 0 Challenger launched from the Kennedy Space Center launch complex 39b at 1138 a.m. beginning at t+ 0.678 until t+ 3.375 seconds nine puffs of dark gray smoke were recorded escaping from the right hand Sr B near the AF strut that attached the booster to the ET it was later determined that these smoke Puffs were caused by joint rotation in the AF field joint of the right hand SRB at ignition the cold temperature in the joint had prevented the orings from creating a seal rainfall from the preceding time on the Launchpad had likely accumulated within the field joint further compromising the sealing capability of the orings as a result hot gas was able to travel past the or ings and erode them molten aluminum oxides from the burned propellant resealed the joint and created a temporary barrier against further hot gas and Flame escaping through the field joint the space shuttle main engines ssmes were throttled down as scheduled for maximum Dynamic pressure during its Ascent the space shuttle encountered wind shear conditions beginning at t+ 37 but they were within design limits of the vehicle and were countered by the guidance system the vehicle breakup at t+ 58.78 a tracking film camera captured the beginnings of a plume near the AF attach strut on the right SRB right before the vehicle passed through Max Q at t+ 59.00 the high aerodynamic forces in wind shear likely broke the aluminum oxide seal that had replaced eroded orings allowing the flame to burn through the joint within 1 second from when it was first recorded the plume became well defined and the enlarging hole caused a drop in internal pressure in the right SRB a leak had begun in the liquid hydrogen tank of the ET at t+ 64.6 60 as indicated by the changing shape of the plume the ssmes pivoted to compensate for the booster burn through which was creating an unexpected thrust on the vehicle the pressure in the external lh2 tank began to drop at plus 66.7 64 indicating that the flame had burned from the SRB into the tank the crew and flight controllers made no indication they were aware of the vehicle and flight anomalies at t+ 68 the Capcom Richard oovy indicated that the SSM had throttled up to 104% thrust in response to cvy scobby said that this was the last communication from Challenger on the air to ground loop at t+ 72284 the right SRB pulled away from the AFT strut that attached it to the ET causing lateral acceleration that was felt by the crew at the same time pressure in the lh2 tank began dropping pilot Mike Smith said that was the last crew comment recorded at t+ 73124 White Vapor was seen flowing away from the ET after which the AFT Dome of the lh2 tank fell off the resulting release of all liquid hydrogen in the tank pushed the lh2 tank forward into the liquid oxygen tank with a force equating to roughly 3 million pound for it while the right SRB collided with the inner tank structure these events resulted in an Abrupt change to the shuttle Stack's attitude and Direction which was shrouded from view by the vaporized contents of the now destroyed ET as it traveled at Mach 1.92 Challenger took aerodynamic forces it was not designed to withstand and broke into several large pieces a wing the main engines the crew cabin and hypergolic fuel leaking from the ruptured reaction control system system were among the parts identified exiting the vapor Cloud the disaster unfolded at an altitude of 46,000 ft both srbs survived the breakup of the shuttle stack and continued flying now unguided by the attitude and trajectory control of their mother ship until their flight termination systems were activated at t+ 110 post breakup flight controller dialogue at t+ 73191 there was a burst of static on the the air to ground loop as the vehicle broke up which was later attributed to groundbased radios searching for a signal from the destroyed spacecraft NASA public affairs Officer Steve Nesbit was initially unaware of the explosion and continued to read out flight information at t+ 89 after video of the explosion was seen in Mission Control the ground control officer reported a negative contact and loss of downlink as they were no longer receiving Transmissions from Challenger Nesbit stated that flight controllers here are looking very carefully at the situation obviously a major malfunction and they had no downlink soon afterwards he said that they have a report from the flight Dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded he added that the flight director confirms that and they're looking at checking with the recovery forces to see what can be done at this point in mission control flight director Jay green ordered that contingency procedures be put into effect which included locking the doors shutting down telephone Communications and freezing computer terminals to collect data from them cause and time of death the crew cabin which was made of reinforced aluminum separated in one piece from the rest of the Orbiter it then traveled in a ballistic Arc reaching the apogee of 65,000 ft approximately 25 seconds after the explosion at the time of Separation the maximum acceleration is estimated to have been between 12 and 20 times that of gravity within 2 seconds it had dropped below four gravity and within 10 seconds the cabin was in freef Fall the forces involved at this stage were probably insufficient to cause major injury to the crew at least some of the crew were alive and conscious after the breakup as personal egress air packs paps were activated for Smith and two unidentified crew members but not for scobby the paps were not intended for inlight use and the astronauts never trained with them for an inflight emergency the location of Smith's activation switch on the back side of his seat indicated that either Resnik or onzuka likely activated it for him investigators found their remaining unused Air Supply consistent with the expected consumption during the post breakup trajectory while analyzing the wreckage investigators discovered that several electrical system switches on Smith's rightand panel had been moved from their usual launch positions the switches had lever locks on top of them that must be pulled out before the switch could be moved later tests established that neither the force of the explosion nor the impact with the ocean could have moved them indicating that Smith made the switch changes presumably in a feudal attempt to restore electrical power to the cockpit after the crew cabin detached from the rest of the Orbiter on July 28th 1986 NASA's associate administrator for space flight former astronaut Richard h truley released a report on the deaths of the crew from physician and Sky laab 2 astronaut Joseph P Kerwin pressurization could have enabled Consciousness for the entire fall until impact the crew cabin hit the ocean surface at 207 M hour approximately 2 minutes and 45 seconds after breakup the estimated deceleration was 200 gravity far exceeding structural limits of the crew compartment or crew survivability levels the mid deck floor had not suffered buckling or tearing as would result from a rapid decompression but stowed equipment showed damage consistent with decompression and debris was embedded between the two forward windows that may have caused a loss of pressure impact damage to the crew cabin was severe enough that it could not be determined whether the crew cabin had previously been damaged enough to lose pressurization Prospect of crew escape and Recovery unlike other spacecraft the space shuttle did not allow for crew escape during powered Flight launch Escape systems had been considered during development but NASA's conclusion was that the space shuttle expected high reliability would preclude the need for one 181 modified SR71 Blackbird ejection seats and full pressure suits were used for the two-person Crews on the first four space shuttle orbital test flights but they were disabled and later removed for the operational flights Escape options for the operational flights were considered but not implemented due to their complexity high cost and heavy weight after the disaster a system was implemented to allow the crew to escape in gliding flight but this system would not have been usable to escape an explosion during Ascent 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 in sh 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 eight ships by 7 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 priori ized 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 8th with the rescue and Salvage ship USS preserver and eventually grew to 16 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 use sidescan sonar to make the initial search for debris and covered 486 Square nautical miles at water depths between 70 ft and 1,200 ft 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 crude 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 by the nr1 submarine on April 5th and the seink submersible on April 12 confirmed that it was the damaged field joint and it was successfully recovered on April 13 of the 196,00 lb was recovered another 54,000 lb was found but not recovered and 4,226 lb 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 in 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 thanks for watching make sure to subscribe to our Channel and check out another of our interesting videos before you leave

Channel: Prime Discovery

Views: 9,949

Keywords: What Happened, To The Bodies, Challenger Crew, happened, bodiess, space accidents, Challenger spacecraft, challenger, ultimate expedition, ultimate, expedition, discovery, far greater danger, space exploration, future astronauts, space, spacecrafts, The Worst Part, The Challenger Disaster, Wasn't What You Think, Details That Will Chill You To The Bone, details, chill to the bone

Id: mjDcHkcHORk

Length: 29min 37sec (1777 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 13 2024