The Space Shuttle Challenger Accident Investigation

Two years after it paraded through the streets of Los Angeles following a cross-country ferry flight from Florida, the space shuttle Endeavour was loaded with a Spacehab logistics module ahead of the orbiter’s planned transition to a vertical display on a mock launch pad in 2018.

Thirty years ago Friday, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard the shuttle Discovery with a famously flawed mirror, the opening chapter in an improbable saga of redemption and scientific discovery that revolutionized humanity’s view of the cosmos with jaw-dropping images now familiar to millions.

Relive the final space shuttle mission with this slow-motion film footage of Atlantis’ launch from the Kennedy Space Center on July 7, 2011. (Membership Required)