I haven’t built in 1/400 in a long time. For more reasons than one. The main reason was I thought it had become too small for my eyes to handle. But I still had some unfinished business in that scale. My plan was to build all shuttles in 1/400, each on a milestone mission. I did Enterprise (ALT), Columbia (STS-1), Atlantis (First docking to Mir) and Endeavour (its last ISS mission with most spacecraft attached to the station).
But I still had to do at least two more. I wanted to show Discovery, the workhorse of the fleet, while deploying the Hubble Space Telescope. And Challenger. Which will be this build.
When Challenger lifted off from LC39A the 30th October of 1985, it was another milestone in the Shuttle program in many ways. With eight people on board, it was the largest ever crew launched in a single spacecraft. It also was the launch of the first Dutch astronaut, Wubbo Ockels. And it was the last time Shuttle Challenger made a full flight from launch to wheel stop, at Edwards AFB on November 6. On the next occasion, 26 February 1986 and well, we all know what happened, I don’t have to elaborate on that…
More story and many more photos after the jump:
