agreed to pay $7.7 million in cash and annuities to the families of four of the seven Challenger astronauts as part of a settlement aimed at avoiding lawsuits in the nation’s worst space disaster, according to government documents released yesterday.

The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was a fatal accident in the United States’ space program that occurred on January 28, 1986, when the Space Shuttle Challenger (OV-099) broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard.

In March 1986, the remains of the astronauts were found in the debris of the crew cabin. Though all of the important pieces of the shuttle were retrieved by the time NASA closed its Challenger investigation in 1986, most of the spacecraft remained in the Atlantic Ocean.

Families of four of the seven crew members killed in the Challenger explosion have settled with the government for total damages exceeding $750,000 for each family, with 60% of the sum to be provided by Morton Thiokol Inc., maker of the solid rocket boosters on the space shuttle, an Administration source said Monday.

Much later, in 2008, NASA released a crew survival report detailing the Columbia crew’s last few minutes. The astronauts probably survived the initial breakup of Columbia, but lost consciousness in seconds after the cabin lost pressure. The crew died as the shuttle disintegrated.

Tragic loss of Columbia Columbia broke apart during reentry while returning to Earth after a 16-day science mission. Investigators later found that a piece of shuttle fuel tank foam insulation punched a hole in the heat shielding that lined Columbia’s left wing edge during its Jan. 16 launch.

Columbia was a 200000 feet going 121500. Miles an hour when it suddenly broke up under stress that we still do not understand. Sixteen. Minutes from home.

The remains of all seven astronauts who were killed in the space shuttle Columbia tragedy have been recovered, US officials said last night. The shuttle was travelling at 18 times the speed of sound, 39 miles above Texas, when disaster struck.

President George W. Bush

Four fully operational orbiters were initially built: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis. Of these, two were lost in mission accidents: Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, with a total of 14 astronauts killed….Space Shuttle.

Nearly a decade later, the Space Shuttle was born. On May 30, 2020, NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken launched to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, marking the first crewed spaceflight launched from American soil since NASA retired the Space Shuttle.

Improving the performance of aeronautical and space vehicles. Developing vehicles capable of carrying stuff and people into space. Establishing long range studies into the utilisation of aeronautical and space activities, for peaceful and scientific purposes.