(CNN) — A group of explorers ventured into the Atlantic Ocean in search of WWII relics lost at sea, but they stumbled upon something else: a six-metre-long segment of the wreckage of the space shuttle Challenger, which was destroyed shortly after its release in 1986.
The History Channel and NASA revealed Thursday that the Challenger Segment was discovered off the east coast of Florida while filming a new series called “The Bermuda Triangle: Into Cursed Waters.” The series will premiere this month on the History Channel.
Challenger disbanded upon launch on January 28, 1986, killing all seven crew members on board, including a professor who would become the first civilian in space. Viewers, especially school students in the United States, watched the live broadcast of the explosion that morning in horror.
“NASA is currently evaluating what further actions it can take regarding the artifact that will appropriately honor the legacy of the Challenger’s fallen astronauts and their loved ones,” the space agency said in a press release.
Mike Barnette, an underwater explorer who led the team that found the shuttle artifact, recalls watching the tragedy on television in his high school class. Barnette said it was a “sobering” experience to realize that his team had found a piece of the spacecraft, the first wreckage to be discovered since the shuttle’s remains ran aground in 1996.
“I can almost smell the smells from that day,” Barnette told CNN in a telephone interview Thursday, referring to the day the Challenger exploded. “I so burned it into my brain.”
Barnette and his team of investigators set out in March to search for suspected shipwrecks in the Bermuda Triangle, a stretch of the North Atlantic Ocean where dozens of shipwrecks and plane crashes are said to have occurred. The team also looked at an area outside the triangle, just off Florida’s space coast, where NASA has launched rockets since its inception.
The team was looking for a rescue aircraft from World War II that mysteriously disappeared in December 1945, but a more modern object partially covered by seafloor sand piqued the interest and investigation of the dive team, according to the History Channel.
During the first dive, Barnette said a storm made the water so murky it was like swimming in Guinness beer. “We had terrible visibility,” she said.
The divers made a second excursion in May and eventually captured clear images of the wreck. They brought proof of their discovery to the retired NASA astronaut, Bruce Melnicka longtime friend of Barnette’s, who immediately suggested it could be debris from the Challenger disaster.
Particular square mosaics of Challenger provided the clue to the explorers, suggesting that they had discovered a large piece of the orbiter’s underside. The underside was covered with thousands of silicone mosaics that protected the spacecraft from heat as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere from space.
The team turned over the results to NASA in August, and the space agency recently confirmed the origin of the debris after reviewing images from the dive. according to a press release.
Challenger’s last mission was to take seven people into space: NASA astronauts Francis “Dick” Scobee, Michael Smith, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik and Gregory Jarvis, as well as Christa McAuliffe, a teacher at the New Hampshire. become the first civilian passenger on the space shuttle as part of a new NASA program.
However, 73 seconds after its liftoff from the Florida launch center, the Challenger exploded, killing all on board. A NASA investigation later revealed that a rubber washer on one of Challenger’s solid rocket boosters had failed because it had been exposed to unusually low temperatures while the space shuttle was on the launch pad. This caused a leak of highly explosive gases, which ultimately led to the catastrophic explosion.
“Although it has been nearly 37 years since seven bold and courageous explorers lost their lives aboard the Challenger, this tragedy will forever remain etched in the collective memory of our country. For millions of people around the world, myself included, January 28 1986 still feels like yesterday,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.
“This discovery gives us a chance to pause once more, to uphold the legacy of the seven pioneers we lost, and to reflect on how this tragedy has changed us. At NASA, the core value of safety is, and must be, remain forever our top priority, especially as our missions explore more of the cosmos than ever before.”
The six-part series “The Bermuda Triangle: Into Cursed Waters” premieres at 10 p.m. ET November 22 on the History Channel.
