Space Shuttle Challenger Space Shuttle Challenger Space Shuttle "Challenger" (Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-099) was the second orbiter of NASA's space shuttle program to be put into service, after "Columbia". "Challenger" was built by Rockwell International's Space Transportation Systems Division, in Downey, California. Its maiden flight, STS-6, began on April 4, 1983. The orbiter was launched and landed nine times before breaking apart 73 seconds into its tenth mission, STS-51-L, on January 28, 1986, resulting in the death of all seven crew members, including a civilian school teacher. It was the first of two shuttles to be destroyed in flight, the other being "Columbia",
Space policy of the United States DARPA. NASA also took over the US manned satellite program, Man In Space Soonest, from the Air Force, as Project Mercury. Early in John F. Kennedy's presidency, he was inclined to dismantle plans for the Apollo program, which he had opposed as a senator, but postponed any decision out of deference to his vice president whom he had appointed chairman of the National Advisory Space Council and who strongly supported NASA due to its Texas location. This changed with his January 1961 State of the Union address, when he suggested international cooperation in space. In response to the flight of