Aug 28 1986
From The Space Library
The U.S. Marine Corps salvage operation for the 51-L Space Shuttle accident, which involved the Freedom Star, the Liberty Star, and the Independence vessels, came to an end after a seven-month effort. It was the largest ocean recovery operation in history and at its peak involved 22 ships and 6,000 personnel, as well as numerous aircraft. The search yielded 45 per-cent of the Challenger, 50 percent of the external tank and Solid Rocket Boosters, 95 percent of the Spartan-Halley spacecraft, 35 percent of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, and 90 percent of the Inertial Upper Stage. (NASA Release 86-121; C Trib, Aug 29/86; B Sun, Aug 29/86; W Times, Aug 29/86; W Post, Aug 31/86)
The Air Force was forced to destroy an unarmed Minuteman 3 ICBM over the Pacific Ocean after an undisclosed problem developed during its 30-minute test flight. Since February 1995, ten successful minuteman test launches had been done when another rocket had to be destroyed. (NY Times, Aug 29/85; P Inq, Aug 29/86)
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