Rocket launches in1986

Voyager 2 sweeps past Uranus on January 24, four days before Challenger breaks apart 73 seconds after launch on January 28 — killing all seven crew and grounding the Space Shuttle for nearly three years. The Soviet Union flies on, launching the Mir core module on February 19, while the Halley's Comet armada — Vega 1 and 2, ESA's Giotto, and Japan's Sakigake and Suisei — reaches the comet in March.