This Day in Space History

January 28^th, 1986 the space shuttle Challenger exploded only 73 seconds after liftoff.

This was the shuttles 10^th anniversary. The explosion killed all seven members of the crew. Including Christa McAuliffe, who would have been the first ordinary American citizen up in space. She was a 37-year-old high school history teacher. McAuliffe earned her spot on board by winning a contest NASA started, called the NASA Teacher in Space Program. She underwent months of training for the mission.  

After a particularly cold January week that us Floridians are still not quite used to, NASA’s engineers postponed the Challengers 10^th flight for six days. After postponing it for almost a week, the shuttle was given the go ahead. Engineers at NASA warned that because of the unusually cold weather, certain parts of the shuttle might be damaged or not working up to their abilities. Specifically, the rubber o-rings that helped seal the joints of the rocket boosters, which could potentially fail at cold temperatures. These warnings were ignored. The Challengers lifted off, and the whole country was traumatized 73 seconds later as bits of the shuttles tumbled into the ocean.

President Ronald Regan put together a special team to figure out what happened with the shuttle. Members of this team included Neil Armstrong and Richard Feynman.

The space shuttle program came to a halt for two years after the Challenger exploded. NASA changed numerous features of their shuttles. The first launch after was Discovery.

Two years after the Challenger exploded, two pieces of the shuttle were found washed ashore on the Florida coast. 

Hubble and Webb: A Love Story

Star-crossed lovers is quite the understatement with this one.

28 years ago the Hubble Space Telescope began circling the Earth. Hubble launched from the space shuttle Discovery and since then as been gifting us with stunning, high resolution, never before seen images of the solar systems best objects. Not only has it given us pictures, but also discoveries like dark matter, Pluto, black holes and the fact that the universe is growing at an accelerating rate, instead of slowing down.

While Hubble has and always will be an amazing leap for science, the telescope won't last forever. So alas, NASA is planning its retirement party. 

Hubble isn't getting replaced, but merely upgraded. 

The differences between Hubble and Webb are pretty astronomical. Starting with size. Hubble is about the size of a tractor trailer, at about 43.5 feet long. Webb on the other hand is about the size of a tennis court, at about 69 feet long. 

Next is wavelength. It is an infrared observatory which will base its missions off of what Hubble discovered. Webb will have a longer wavelength coverage as well as heightened sensitivity. The point of this is to be able to look for the formation of the very first galaxies. Webb will also have the ability to look inside the dust clouds of stars being formed today! 

Lastly, orbit. One of the biggest worries NASA has for Webb is the fact that they can't fix it if something messes up. Webb will be orbiting 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. Which is farther than any maned mission has ever been. As opposed to Hubble, which was so close to Earth's orbit is was launched via a space shuttle. Webb will be launched on a rocket. 

At the 1.5 km point where Webb will be orbiting, the solar shield will be able to block the light from Earth, the Sun and the Moon. Webb has to keep that infrared telescope as cool as possible. Basically, Webb will stay in the same fixed spot. A more detailed explanation of the sun shield from NASA's best web scientists can be found here, https://jwst.nasa.gov/sunshield.html. 

Webb will be launching Spring of 2019! 

But, if you're too excited (like me) NASA has a live web cam feed for those who need some serious space.

https://jwst.nasa.gov/webcam.html

The biggest part of Webb's mission is getting there. This is a video of how it will get 1.5 km from Earth!