It was a cool Thursday morning in Cape Canaveral because the nation’s first space shuttle was about to make its final ever journey into space.
Area Shuttle Columbia lifted off at 10:39 a.m. Japanese time on Jan. 16, 2003, from Kennedy Area Middle’s Launch Pad 39-A with a crew of seven.
“The Lord has blessed us with an attractive day right here,” mission commander Rick Husband mentioned over the radio simply earlier than liftoff. “We recognize all the laborious work everybody has put into this, and we’re able to go.”
Husband’s crew had been shuttle pilot William McCool, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon, who was the primary Israeli to enter space.
All seven died 16 days later when the shuttle disintegrated on re-entry, the results of a bit of insulating foam that had damaged off from the exterior gas tank and hit the left wing of the orbiter in the course of the launch. The injury was deadly because the extreme heat can be the vessel’s demise because it streaked throughout the skies over Texas.
Columbia’s ultimate mission was the orbiter’s twenty eighth general, the 113th mission for the shuttle program. It was the primary of 5 space shuttles, launching on its first mission April 12, 1981, with the late John Younger on board as commander together with pilot Robert Crippen.
Over 22 years, Columbia traveled greater than 125 million miles orbiting the Earth 4,808 instances whereas in space greater than 300 days.
It ferried 160 astronauts over its profession together with Shannon Lucid, Story Musgrave, Eileen Collins, Charles Boldin and Sen. Invoice Nelson.
The tragedy is one in every of three main ones in NASA’s historical past, all occurring within the early a part of the 12 months. The seven deaths aboard Columbia, seven deaths from the explosion of Area Shuttle Challenger in 1986, the deaths of three Apollo 1 astronauts in 1967 and others misplaced within the pursuit of space will likely be honored on NASA’s Day of Remembrance later this month.
Kennedy Area Middle Customer’s Complicated will maintain a ceremony Jan. 26 with occasions beginning at 10 a.m.
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Area Shuttle Columbia launched for the final time 20 years in the past in mission that led to tragedy (2023, January 17)
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