To improve DoD-NASA relations the space agency agreed to fly Aldridge on STS-62-A, scheduled for 1986 as the first Vandenberg shuttle mission. While training for the mission he watched on television the loss of "Challenger" in January 1986; the accident accelerated DoD plans for unmanned rockets, but several NRO payloads only the shuttle could launch were grounded until it flew again, a dilemma NRO had feared as early as the mid-1970s.