Depicts a portrait of Christa McAuliffe with a hopeful gaze. Her name above, date and inscriptions below.

Sculptor: Phebe Hemphill
Designer: Laurie Musser

Depicts McAuliffe as a teacher, smiling as she points forward and upward, symbolizing the future. Three high school-age students look on with wonder. The seven stars pay tribute to those who perished in the Challenger tragedy.

Space Shuttle Challenger (Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-099) was the second orbiter of NASA's Space Shuttle program to be put into service, after Columbia. Challenger was built by Rockwell International's Space Transportation Systems Division, in Downey, California. Its maiden flight, STS-6, began on April 4, 1983. The orbiter was launched and landed nine times before disintegrating 73 seconds into its tenth mission, STS-51-L, on January 28, 1986, resulting in the deaths of all seven crew members including a civilian school teacher.

Challenger was the first of two orbiters that were destroyed in flight, followed by Columbia in 2003. The Challenger accident led to a two-and-a-half-year grounding of the shuttle fleet; flights resumed in 1988, with STS-26 flown by Discovery. Challenger was replaced by Endeavour, which was built from structural spares ordered by NASA in the construction contracts for Discovery and Atlantis.

Sculptor: Joseph Menna
Designer: Emily Damstra