OTD…April 9 and STS-59

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

Studying the atmosphere as part of NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth was the objective of shuttle Atlantis’ STS-45 mission in March 1992.

NASA’s Kepler planet-finder began its mission to discover Earth-like worlds orbiting other stars in the galaxy today in 2009, successfully launching aboard a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral.