Space Shuttle thermal protection system
On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle "Columbia" was destroyed on reentry due to a failure of the TPS. The investigation team found and reported that the probable cause of the accident was that during launch, a piece of foam debris punctured an RCC panel on the left wing's leading edge and allowed hot gases from the reentry to enter the wing and disintegrate the wing from within, leading to eventual loss of control and breakup of the shuttle.
Space Shuttle program
The accidents led to national level inquiries and detailed analysis of why the accidents occurred. There was a significant pause where changes were made before the Shuttles returned to flight. The "Columbia" disaster occurred in 2003, but STS took more than a year off before returning to flight in June 2005 with the STS-114 mission. The previous break was between January 1986 (when the "Challenger" disaster occurred) and 32 months later when STS-26 was launched on September 29, 1988.