On February 1, 2003, space shuttle Columbia broke apart while re-entering the atmosphere over Texas, killing all seven crew members on board, minutes before Columbia was scheduled to land at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center . Here are the other space disasters in the history of mankind:January 28, 1986: The highly anticipated launch of Space Shuttle Challenger, which carried the first teacher-astronaut, Christa McAuliffe, was watched live by many around the world. But 73 seconds after takeoff, the shuttle erupted in a fireball that killed the entire crew. Tragically, it is also known as the first and only mission to result in human death in outer space. As their oxygen flooded out into space, the cosmonauts were hit with high-altitude decompression and died in less than a minute.

Source: Economic Times January 28, 2017 18:34 UTC