On 28 January 1986, the US was plunged into mourning when the space shuttle Challenger exploded in the skies over Florida, killing all seven crew. However, even before they left the launch pad, they were doomed.

This film tells the story of how, despite every warning, that tragedy came to pass. Using dramatic reconstructions based on information from NASA and other sources as well as the moving stories of those who were there, it follows the fortunes of Challenger's crew in the year leading up to their deaths. In addition, it shows the increasingly desperate attempts of two engineers to stop the launch.

As school teacher Christa McAuliffe -who was supposed to be the first ordinary citizen to go into space - and Challenger's commander Dick Scobee prepared for a flight that should have made history, the engineers discovered that a vital component of the shuttle's twin solid rocket boosters was faulty. Instead of ushering in a new era of space travel for all, Challenger's ill-fated flight exposed just how unready the shuttle was to fly.

The website that accompanies the programme is a chronology of space disasters - from the deaths by fire of the crew of Apollo 1 on the launch pad in 1967 to the tragedy of another American shuttle in 2003 when Columbia broke apart on its return to Earth. It also includes the catastrophes that afflicted the Soviet space programme, many of which were not revealed until decades afterwards.