The underbelly was coated in thousands of silicon tiles protecting the shuttle from heat as it returned into the Earth’s atmosphere from space. They brought evidence of their discovery to retired NASA astronaut Bruce Melnick, a longtime friend of Barnette’s, who immediately suggested it could be detritus from the Challenger disaster.ĭistinctive square tiles from the Challenger tipped the explorers off, suggesting they had uncovered a large chunk of the orbiter’s underbelly. The divers carried out a second excursion in May and finally captured clear footage of the wreckage. The team was searching for a WWII-era rescue plane that mysteriously disappeared in December 1945, but a more modern object partially covered by sand on the seafloor sparked interest and further investigation from the dive team, according to the History Channel.ĭuring the first dive, Barnette said a storm caused the water to turn so murky it was like swimming in Guinness beer. The team also set its sights on one area outside the triangle, just off Florida’s Space Coast, where NASA has launched rockets since its inception. “It was just so burned into my brain.”īarnette and his team of investigators set off in March to search suspected shipwreck sites in the Bermuda Triangle, a swath of the northern Atlantic Ocean said to be the site of dozens of shipwrecks and plane crashes. “I can almost smell the smells of that day,” Barnette told CNN in a phone interview Thursday, referring to the day the Challenger exploded. Rare photos show the early years of NASA's space shuttle era The bad weather meant an additional day of delay in moving the shuttle to Florida. He called it “sobering” to realize that his team found a scrap from the spacecraft - the first debris to be discovered since pieces from the shuttle washed ashore in 1996.Ĭolumbia, mated to the SCA, heads toward the weight and balance hangar at Edwards on March 16, 1979, both to complete tile repairs and to protect the delicate tiles from an impending rainstorm.
Challenger shuttle tv#
Mike Barnette, an underwater explorer who led the crew that found the shuttle artifact, remembers watching the tragedy on TV in his high school classroom.
“NASA currently is considering what additional actions it may take regarding the artifact that will properly honor the legacy of Challenger’s fallen astronauts and the families who loved them,” the space agency said in a news release. TV viewers, especially students in schools across the US, watched a live broadcast of the blast in horror that morning. The Challenger broke apart after its launch on January 28, 1986, killing all seven crew members aboard, including a teacher was set to become the first civilian in space.
Challenger shuttle series#
The History Channel and NASA revealed Thursday that the Challenger segment was discovered off Florida’s east coast during the filming of a new series called “The Bermuda Triangle: Into Cursed Waters.” The series is set to premiere this month on the History Channel. Explorers trudged the Atlantic Ocean searching for World War II artifacts lost at sea, but they stumbled on something else - a 20-foot-long piece of debris from the Space Shuttle Challenger, which was destroyed shortly after takeoff in 1986.
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