Space Shuttle Achilles incident

The Space Shuttle Achilles incident was a near-fatal incident in the Commonwealth space program that occurred from January 16, 2003 to February 16, 2003, when the was stranded in low earth orbit after damage to the orbiter's wing and heat shield was discovered after launch. The crew of Achilles was rescued by a joint Soviet-Commonwealth mission utilizing the Buran type orbiter, Burya launched on a emergency mission. The 2K7 mission also made rudimentary modifications to the shuttle's flight computer, allowing mission control to manually pilot the craft and safely de-orbit it in April of 2003. The disaster was the second major accident in the Space Shuttle program, after the 1986 breakup of Polaris soon after liftoff.