Today marks the 39th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (Mission STS-51-L), when the shuttle's seven astronauts were killed by an explosion.

It’s been 40 years since the tragic Space Shuttle Challenger launch.

Above, family members of Ellison Onizuka received memorial flags at a ceremony at the National Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl a few months after the disaster.

Prelude: It was bitterly cold in Washington for Reagan’s scheduled State of the Union address. But it wasn't the weather that intervened. Instead, the annual event was postponed by a tragedy that ...

NASA's space shuttle Challenger completed 10 missions before it broke apart during a launch in 1986, killing seven astronauts ...

40 years ago on Jan. 28, 1986, 7 spacefarers were killed when shuttle Challenger exploded midair after launching from Kennedy ...

NASA's space shuttle Challenger exploded and broke apart Jan. 28, 1986, in the sky over East-Central Florida, killing the ...

Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff while carrying seven people, including "Teacher in Space" participant Christa McAuliffe. Nobody survived the launch on Jan. 28, 1986 from NASA's Kennedy ...

NASA's Space Shuttle Program, which ran from 1981 to 2011, was a complex and ambitious project that pushed the boundaries of ...

Forty years after the space shuttle Challenger disintegrated shortly after liftoff, the disaster remains one of the most consequential tragedies in U.S. spaceflight history.

"I think the people, the seven people we lost that day, and how they had dedicated their careers and lives to exploration." ...

On Jan. 28, 1986, NASA’s 25th space shuttle mission, Challenger, left the launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Seventy-three seconds into flight, Challenger exploded over the Atlantic Ocean as ...