Challenger disaster, mission control after disaster. Footage of mission controllers in the Mission Operations Control Room (MOCR) at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, USA, after the Challenger disaster. This was the catastrophic failure and disintegration that occurred on 28 January 1986 during the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51-L. Flight Director Jay Greene features prominently in this footage. Standard emergency procedures had been put in place, including sealing the control centre, cutting off non-essential communications, and following checklists to ensure preservation of the flight data. All seven on board the shuttle were killed: US astronauts Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair, US engineer Gregory Jarvis, and US high school teacher Christa McAuliffe. The launch had taken place after several days of delay at 11:38 local time (16:38 UTC) from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA. The subsequent investigation found that cold conditions on the launch day contributed to the failure of an already defective design element (the O-ring seal in one of the solid rocket boosters). |