After the tragic loss of the Challenger space shuttle, the nation mourned — and then decided to honor the fallen astronauts’ memory by continuing on where they left off. A new space shuttle was commissioned, built largely from spare parts for the earlier Atlantis and Discovery shuttles. Its maiden voyage was in 1991, to save a falling communications satellite, and it was scheduled to be the last American shuttle in space, in 2011. In between, the Endeavour flew twenty-five missions, spending almost 300 days in space.

On this day, September 12, in 1992, the Endeavour launched for its second mission, and the Space Shuttle Program’s historic 50th. The mission of STS-47 was to deliver a payload into orbit and conduct a series of experiments.

The Endeavour’s name was spelled conspicuously British, a nod to the famous voyage by Captain James Cook’s first voyage on the ship of the same name. Cook sailed to the South Pacific, in part to observe and record the infrequent Venus transit, when the planet passes between the Earth and the sun. His observation helped later astronomers determine the distance between the sun and the Earth, and from there the size of the universe.