Challenger disaster
The Space Shuttle Challenger was the 25th space shuttle mission conducted by NASA which broke apart 73 seconds after take-off before disintegrating over the Atlantic Ocean on 28 January 1986 at 11:39AM Eastern Standard Time, killing all of its seven passengers. The cause of the explosion was due to a fuel tank igniting as a result of a rocket booster failure. The bodies of the victims were recovered from the ocean and space shuttle missions were grounded for 3 years until the rockets NASA had at the time were implemented with safer rocket boosters.
Despite the disaster leaving no survivors, this only counts for those on board the rocket. Iconic puppeteer Caroll Spinney and his character on Sesame Street, Big Bird managed to dodge the ill fated voyage when Big Bird's 8 foot 2 inch height exceeeded NASA's astronaut height limit (no astronaut can be 75 inches or 6 foot 3 inches in height) which also saw the idea of the lovable yellow bird puppet going on a spaceship to encourage kids to become interested in space travel being scrapped and teacher Christine McAuliffe taking Spinney's place. He would live for another 33 years afterwards.