OTD…Jan. 28 and STS-51L

#OTD in 1993…Endeavour launched a new NASA Tracking and Data Relay Satellite.

Veteran CBS News correspondent Bruce Hall was not on the air when the shuttle Challenger blasted off 30 years ago Thursday. It was, after all, the 25th shuttle flight, the first of 16 planned for 1986, and news agencies were backing off expensive, remote coverage of what increasingly appeared to be a routine event.

The U.S. launched its first man into space on this date, May 5, 1961, as Alan Shepard rode the Freedom 7 capsule on a 15-minute suborbital flight to 116.5 miles in altitude and 303 miles downrange to splashdown.