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Old 12th Feb 2018, 20:43
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vapilot2004
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
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These are the things we know: Warnings from the MT SRB engineers were overruled by management. That is the widely accepted reason we lost Challenger. According to NASA and the accident investigation, wind shear was within mission limits and the control systems responded to flight path deviations up until the moment of (unplanned) SRB separation. However, failure of the joint seal and stresses from wind shear on the SRB were not part of the investigation as far as I know.

A timeline with communication transcripts and visual observations is available along with links to various NASA media and the accident report here at Spaceflight Today - Challenger timeline.

The timeline merges telemetry beamed down from the shuttle, NASA recordings of the flight director's loop in mission control at the Johnson Space Center, the NASA-Select audio circuit heard by the public and a transcript of crew cabin intercom conversations released by NASA after the accident.
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