Feb 1 2003
From The Space Library
After completing a 16-day orbital science mission that NASA judged a success, the crew of STS-107 perished when Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart above Texas during reentry. NASA's Mission Control lost communication with Columbia at 9:00 a.m. (EST) and immediately switched to the contingency plan to preserve all flight-activity information. NASA had scheduled the landing for 9:16 a.m. (EST). NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe issued a statement describing all the steps NASA had taken after the loss of the Shuttle. NASA officials had spoken with President George W. Bush and Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge; met with family members of the crew; assembled an internal mishap investigation team; and appointed a mishap investigation board. The board comprised an external group of people independent from NASA, charged with examining all the information that Mission Control had locked down when it lost communication with Columbia. (NASA, “NASA Statement on Loss of Communications with Columbia,” news release 03-030, 1 February 2003, ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2003/03-030.txt (accessed 15 July 2008); NASA, “Statement by NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe,” news release 03-032, 1 February 2003, ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2003/03-032.txt (accessed 15 July 2008); Washington Post, “The Columbia Catastrophe,” 2 February 2003.
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