as it was flying.

This motion at such high speed put intense aerodynamic loads on the Orbiter's airframe. The stresses these loads created were simply too great for the Shuttle to bear, and it quickly broke up into several large pieces. First to fail was the forward fuselage which broke away trailing a mass of umbilical lines pulled loose from the payload bay. The nose of the Orbiter also separated from the crew cabin and spilled the hypergolic nitrogen tetroxide fuel used in the reaction control system (RCS). This fuel ignited in a reddish-brown cloud that can be seen emerging from the cloud surrounding the disintegrating Shuttle.



Structural breakup of the Orbiter

The remainder of the Orbiter, its forward end suddenly opened to the supersonic flow, blew apart from the insideout and threw up a hail of debris that emerged from the massive vapor cloud. Clearly visible in the debris raining down after the breakup were the crew cabin, left wing, and the aft fuselage containing the three main engines that were still firing using their remaining propellant. The two SRBs crossed paths and continued operating until 110 seconds after launch, when they were destroyed using onboard self-destruct explosives.



Orbiter debris

Fate of the Crew:

The momentum of the crew cabin, containing the seven astronauts, carried it upward to an altitude of about 64,000 ft (19,525 m) before it began a ballistic free-fall into the ocean. While it is not conclusively known what happened to the crew during this period, it is believed that they probably survived the initial breakup of