OTD…Sept. 27 and Dawn

Today in 1986…Space shuttle Challenger and her seven astronaut crew were lost during launch.

#OTD in 1994, the launch of Columbia on the STS-62 microgravity research mission

In the ten years since its launch from Cape Canaveral, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has orbited the two largest worlds in the asteroid belt and overcome defective components that threatened to derail the mission on its 4 billion-mile voyage, discovering unexpectedly rich geologic tapestries suggesting both destinations have a watery past.