Space Shuttle Endeavour is a retired orbiter from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the fifth and final operational Shuttle built. It embarked on its first mission, STS-49, in May 1992 and its 25th and
Endeavour in orbit in 2008, during STS-123
Endeavour rollout ceremony in April 1991
Endeavour as photographed from the International Space Station as it approached the station during STS-118
Endeavour appears to straddle the stratosphere and mesosphere in this 2010 photo taken from the International Space Station
On January 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members. The spacecraft disintegrated about 46,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, off the c
Space Shuttle Endeavour
…the last shuttle to fly. The United States Congress approved the construction of Endeavour in 1987 to replace the Space Shuttle Challenger, which was destroyed in 1986. NASA chose, on cost grounds, to build much of Endeavour from spare parts rather than refitting the Space Shuttle Enterprise, and used structural spares…
Challenger's solid rocket boosters fly uncontrollably after the breakup of the external tank separated them from the shuttle stack. The remains of the orbiter and tank leave thin white trails as they fall toward the Atlantic Ocean.
Space Shuttle Challenger – assembled for launch along with the ET and two SRBs – atop a crawler-transporter en route to the launch pad about one month before the disaster
Cross-sectional diagram of the original SRB field joint. The top end of the lower rocket segment has a deep U-shaped cavity, or clevis, along its circumference. The bottom end of the top segment extends to form a tang that fits snugly into the clevis of the bottom segment. Two parallel grooves near the top of the clevis inner branch hold ~20 foot (6 meter) diameter O-rings that seal the gap between the tang and the clevis, keeping hot gases out of the gap.
STS-51-L crew: (back) Onizuka, McAuliffe, Jarvis, Resnik; (front) Smith, Scobee, McNair.