Video: 31 years since Challenger tragedy

A NASA video on the investigation into the Challenger accident of January 28, 1986. The video was created by the STS 51-L Data and Design Analysis Task Force which contributed to the Presidential Commission that investigated the tragedy. (Membership required)

On the 30th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, crew families, friends and space workers gathered Thursday to remember the 17 men and women who lost their lives on the high frontier, 14 in two space shuttle disasters and three in an Apollo-era launch pad fire 49 years ago Wednesday.

In the first memorial of its kind, NASA and the families of the 14 men and women who lost their lives aboard the shuttle Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003 have joined together to remember the astronauts with pictures, personal mementos and, in an emotional first, iconic wreckage from both orbiters.