STS-135 video: Solid rocket booster cameras

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket that successfully hauled a NASA satellite quartet into a highly elliptical Earth orbit Thursday was fitted with three onboard video cameras that captured some of the major events of ascent.

Thirty years after the space shuttle Challenger disintegrated in the clear, cold sky high above Cape Canaveral, the commander’s widow no longer feels anger at NASA and the management missteps and schedule pressure that kept the orbiters flying despite a fatal flaw in their solid-fuel boosters.

Former astronaut Bruce McCandless II, a retired Navy captain and son of a Medal of Honor winner who joined NASA during the buildup to the Apollo program, served as capsule communicator when Neil Armstrong took his historic first step on the moon and later flew in space twice during the shuttle program, died Thursday. He was 80.