Disasters in Space

Relive the harrowing moments in Launch Control during NASAs second Return to Flight test flight after the tragic loss of a Space Shuttle Behind the scenes as NASA engineers discover the frightening truth about the incident and the cascade of mistakes

Serious injury or loss of life threaten technicians working on the Mars Exploration Rover when a test procedure goes horribly wrong As the clock ticks toward the critical Mars launch window NASA scrambles to fix this critical space mistake

Catastrophe beckons when gears controlling a Single Point of Failure Space Shuttle landing system are installed backwards And dispite multiple pressures a shocking discovery causes NASA to cancel a historic launch

A spacecraft freefalls from orbit smashing into the ground when its parachute fails to deploy Can the multimillion dollar science mission be salvaged And a wrong turn ruptures a costly Space Shuttle cold plate

A harrowing space mistake leaves the solid rocket boosters hanging by a thread and places the unsuspecting public in the cross hairs of more than a ton of the most explosive rocket fuel on the planet A

The loss of Space Shuttle Columbia stands as one of the worst disasters in spaceflight history Go behind the scenes of the External Tank foam application process and discover why that seemingly insignificant bit of foam came off during launch