Challenger was named after
HMS Challenger, a British
corvette that was the command ship for the
Challenger Expedition, a pioneering global marine research expedition undertaken from 1872 through 1876. The
Apollo 17 Lunar Module, which landed on the Moon in 1972, was also named
Challenger. After STA-099's rollout, it was sent to a
Lockheed test site in Palmdale, where it spent over 11 months in vibration tests designed to simulate entire shuttle flights, from launch to landing. To prevent damage during structural testing, qualification tests were performed to a
safety factor of 1.2 times the design limit loads. The qualification tests were used to validate computational models, and compliance with the required 1.4 factor of safety was shown by analysis. STA-099 was essentially a complete airframe of a Space Shuttle orbiter, with only a mockup crew module installed and
thermal insulation placed on its forward fuselage. 905, shortly before being delivered in 1982 NASA planned to refit the prototype orbiter
Enterprise (OV-101), used for flight testing, as the second operational orbiter; but
Enterprise lacked most of the systems needed for flight, including a functional propulsion system, thermal insulation, a life support system, and most of the cockpit instrumentation. Modifying it for spaceflight was considered to be too difficult, expensive, and time-consuming. Since STA-099 was not as far along in the construction of its airframe, it would be easier to upgrade to a flight article. Because STA-099's qualification testing prevented damage, NASA found that rebuilding STA-099 into a flightworthy orbiter would be less expensive than refitting
Enterprise. Work on converting STA-099 to operational status began in January 1979, starting with the crew module (the pressurized portion of the vehicle), as the rest of the vehicle was still being used for testing by Lockheed. STA-099 returned to the Rockwell plant in November 1979, and the original, unfinished crew module was replaced with the newly constructed model. Major parts of STA-099, including the payload bay doors, body flap, wings, and vertical stabilizer, also had to be returned to their individual subcontractors for rework. By early 1981, most of these components had returned to Palmdale to be reinstalled. Work continued on the conversion until July 1982, when the new orbiter was rolled out as
Challenger. The collected debris of the vessel is currently buried in decommissioned
missile silos at
Launch Complex 31,
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. A section of the fuselage recovered from Space Shuttle
Challenger can also be found at the "Forever Remembered" memorial at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Debris from the orbiter sometimes washes up on the Florida coast. This is collected and transported to the silos for storage. Because of its early loss,
Challenger was the only Space Shuttle that never wore the NASA
"meatball" logo, and was never modified with the MEDS "glass cockpit". The tail was never fitted with a drag chute, which was fitted to the remaining orbiters in 1992.
Challenger and sister ship
Columbia are the only two shuttles that never visited the Mir Space Station or the International Space Station. In September 2020
Netflix released
Challenger: The Final Flight, a four-part miniseries created by Steven Leckart and Glen Zipper documenting the tragedy firsthand.
Lawsuits In March 1988 the federal government and Morton Thiokol Inc. agreed to pay $7.7 million in cash and annuities to the families of four of the seven
Challenger astronauts as part of a settlement aimed at avoiding lawsuits in the nation's worst space disaster, according to government documents. Morton Thiokol, the company that manufactured the faulty solid rocket booster that caused the accident, paid 60 percent, $4,641,000. The remainder, $3,094,000, was paid by the government. In September 1988 a federal judge dismissed two lawsuits seeking $3 billion from Space Shuttle rocket-maker Morton Thiokol Inc. by
Roger Boisjoly, a former company engineer who warned against the ill-fated 1986
Challenger launch. == List of missions ==