Christa McAuliffe

A crew of six would board the shuttle along with McAuliffe for Mission 51-L: Commander Francis "Dick" Scobee, Pilot Michael J. Smith, engineer Judith Resnick, physicist Ronald E. McNair, aerospace engineer Ellison S. Onizuka, and engineer Gregory B. Jarvis. Several days prior to launch, the crew, including McAuliffe, entered quarantine to minimize the danger of infectious disease on-board the shuttle. Weather and other problems caused repeated rescheduling of the original launch date of January 22, 1986. NASA pushed the date back to January 25, and then to January 26. On the morning of January 27 the astronauts entered the shuttle hatch approximately two hours before the scheduled lift-off. They buckled into their seats, but ten minutes prior to lift-off the countdown was delayed for mechanical repairs. Four hours later, with repairs completed, the weather changed and the flight was postponed for the fourth time. The astronauts returned to quarantine.

Liftoff

On January 28, 1986 the Challenger was prepared for launch from Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center. The temperature that day hovered at 27 degrees Fahrenheit. McAuliffe and Jarvis, payload specialists, were in the mid-deck of the tri-level crew-module along with mission specialist Onizuka. The pilot and navigators were assigned to the upper flight deck, while the bottom deck served as an equipment bay. The shuttle's external fuel tank, 153 feet long by 27 feet wide, carried over one million pounds of fuel. The tank would separate when empty, as would the tanks of the twin solid rocket boosters, each nearly as large as the fuel tank and designed to burn out within three minutes after launch. The tiles on the outside of the Challenger could withstand heat of 2,300 to 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Mission 51-L would have been the tenth voyage into space for the 122-foot Challenger, but the catastrophic flight lasted a mere 74 seconds. At 11:39 a.m. the fuel tanks exploded, much of the spacecraft disintegrated, and all aboard perished. Helpless, horrified onlookers watched as the shuttle carrying seven astronauts fizzled like a flare and fell into the sea.

Some weeks later a NASA search crew located the wreckage of the space shuttle Challenger on the ocean floor. Christa McAuliffe's remains were returned to New Hampshire and buried near her home on May 1, 1986.

McAuliffe and the other crewmembers each had carried cherished keepsakes on board the Challenger's final mission. McAuliffe brought with her a class ring belonging to Steve McAuliffe, a necklace belonging to her daughter, a stuffed frog from her son, a pennant from Concord High School, a photograph of her high school class, and a personal T-shirt that read, "I touch the future. I teach."