On January 28, 1986, a routine launch was anticipated for the Challenger
space shuttle. Seventy-three seconds into the flight, disaster happened: the
shuttle broke apart, killing all seven crew members on board. An
investigation into the cause of the disaster focused on a critical seal
called an O-ring, and it is believed that damage to these O-rings during a
shuttle launch may be related to the ambient temperature during the launch.
The table below summarizes observational data on O-rings for 23 shuttle
missions, where the mission order is based on the temperature at the time of
the launch.