On 26th September 1983, two Soviet cosmonauts by the names of Vladimir Titov and Gennadi
Strekalov were on-board a Soyuz-T spacecraft on a mission to visit Salyut 7 space station.
However, things did not go accordingly prior to lift-off. As the Soyuz-T spacecraft was
preparing for launch, it suddenly caught on fire as a result of a fuel leakage and the
rocket was soon engulfed in flames. Fortunately for the crew on-board, the launch escape system
activated just in time; two seconds before the Soyuz spacecraft exploded. Despite suffering
a few cuts and bruises, the lives of both crew members were saved from what would have
been fatal and to this day, this is the only case in which a launch escape system has been
used with a manned spacecraft.
On 15th October 2002, an unmanned Soyuz-U spacecraft carrying a Foton satellite was
supposed to spend 15 days orbiting the Earth for research purposes before re-entering and
landing near the Russian-Kazakhstan border. But that was not the case. Instead the Soyuz-U
spacecraft failed to successfully lift-off after one of the engines malfunctioned which
resulted in an unstable flight. Approximately 20 seconds after blast-off the rocket started
to combust and then fell straight back down and exploded. The explosion killed 20-year-old
army lieutenant, Ivan Marchenko and injured 8 others, all of which were watching in a
processing facility nearby the launch pad.
A Long March 3B rocket with an Intelsat 708 satellite was to be launched into a geostationary
orbit on 15th February 1996. However, upon blast-off, the rocket deviated off course
and crashed nose down into a nearby village completely destroying many houses and taking
many lives. It is unclear exactly how many perished by the explosion, however, it was
reported that at least six people were killed and 57 were injured. The root cause of the
incident was due to a poorly engineered gold-aluminium bonding point inside the power output module.
The Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster on 1st February 2003 was one of the worst space disasters
in history that left all seven crew members dead. Sadly, the entire crew’s fate was
already sealed moments after lift-off as a piece of foam insulation broke off from the
external fuel tank of the shuttle and struck the left-wing of the orbiter. The crew on-board
were unaware of this and proceeded on with the mission. After a 16-day mission, Space
Shuttle Columbia began its re-entry to Earth. As the spacecraft descended, hot gases rushed
through a hole on the damaged left wing of the orbiter causing the shuttle to break apart
and disintegrate, taking the lives of all seven crew members on-board.
The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster that occurred on January 28th 1986 is perhaps regarded
as one of the biggest tragedies in the history of space. 73 seconds after blast-off, Space
Shuttle Challenger broke apart and exploded, killing all seven crew members on-board including
a civilian school teacher, who had been selected to fly via NASA’s “Teacher In Space”
project which would have seen her as the first teacher in space. The cause of the break-up
was traced to a failed O-ring seal that exposed the fuel tank to pressurised hot gases causing
it to rupture. The crew compartment detached during the spacecraft’s disintegration and
plunged straight into the Atlantic Ocean at around 200 miles per hour, killing those who
managed to survive the initial break-up.