WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

A Cocoa Beach front-end loader holds a large piece of debris from the Space Shuttle orbiter Challenger after it washed ashore in Cocoa Beach near the Coconuts on the Beach restaurant and bar. Overseeing the recovery and protection of the piece is KSC criminal investigator Jan Seinkner, facing camera at center, of EG&G Florida Inc., base operations contractor. The piece, about 15 feet by 6 feet, is believed to be part of an elevon or rudder. It is one of the biggest pieces to wash ashore to date. A smaller piece was found several blocks south. NASA recovered thousands of pounds of debris from the Atlantic Ocean after the Jan. 28, 1986 accident which destroyed the Shuttle and claimed the lives of the seven crew members; about 50 percent of the orbiter remained in the ocean after search operations were suspended. Those remains are stored at Cape Canaveral Air Station, mostly in two Minutemen silos. The two newly recovered pieces will be brought to KSC's Security Patrol Headquarters on Contractor Road for examination and temporary storage.