Space Shuttle Challenger disaster buried in Rest Lawn Memorial Park in Lake City, South Carolina. Christa McAuliffe's remains are buried at Calvary Cemetery in her hometown of Concord, New Hampshire. Gregory Jarvis was cremated, and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. Unidentified crew remains were buried communally at the Space Shuttle "Challenger" Memorial in Arlington on May 20, 1986. As a result of the disaster, several National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellites that only the shuttle could launch were grounded because of the accident. This is a dilemma NRO had feared since the 1970s when the shuttle was designated as the United States' primary
Space Shuttle program Space Shuttle program The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official name, Space Transportation System (STS), was taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development. The Space Shuttle—composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank—carried up to eight astronauts and up to of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its