387K views · 9.6K reactions | Families of the lost Challenger astronauts will gather with NASA Thursday to mark the space shuttle accident's 30th anniversary. abc7.la/1JI9SJ2 | ABC7 | Facebook

At 11:38 am EST on #ThisDayInHistory in 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Seventy-three seconds later, the shuttle broke up into fire and smoke. All seven astronauts on board the Challenger were killed: Christa McAuliffe (a New Hampshire teacher chosen for NASA’s 1985 Teacher in Space project), Dick Scobee, Ellison Onizuka (first Asian American astronaut and first astronaut of Japanese descent), Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik, Michael J. Smith, and Ronald