February 1 in History
2003 – Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during the re-entry of mission STS-107 into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard
The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on this day in 2003 when the Space Shuttle Columbia (OV-102) disintegrated as it reentered the atmosphere, killing all seven crew members. They were: commander -Rick D. Husband, a US Air Force colonel and mechanical engineer, who piloted a previous shuttle during the first docking with the International Space Station (STS-96); pilot – William C. McCool, a US Navy commander; payload commander – Michael P. Anderson, a US Air Force lieutenant colonel, physicist, and mission specialist who was in charge of the science mission and was on his second mission altogether (his first being STS-89); payload specialist – Ilan Ramon, a colonel in the Israeli Air Force and the first Israeli astronaut; and mission specialists – Kalpana Chawla, aerospace engineer who was on her second space mission (her first being STS-87), David M. Brown, a US Navy captain trained as an aviator and flight surgeon who worked on scientific experiments, and Laurel Blair Salton Clark, a US Navy captain and flight surgeon who worked on biological experiments.
It was the second fatal accident in the Space Shuttle program, after the 1986 breakup of Challenger soon after liftoff.
During the launch of STS-107, Columbia’s 28th mission, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the Space Shuttle external tank and struck the left wing of the orbiter. Similar foam shedding had occurred during previous shuttle launches, causing damage that ranged from minor to nearly catastrophic, but some engineers suspected the damage to Columbia was more serious. Before reentry, NASA managers had limited the investigation, reasoning that the crew could not have fixed the problem if it had been confirmed. When Columbia reentered the atmosphere of Earth, the damage allowed hot atmospheric gases to penetrate the heat shield and destroy the internal wing structure, which caused the spacecraft to become unstable and break apart.
After the disaster, Space Shuttle flight operations were suspended for more than two years, as they had been after the Challenger disaster. Construction of the International Space Station (ISS) was put on hold; the station relied entirely on the Russian Roscosmos State Space Corporation for resupply for 29 months until Shuttle flights resumed with STS-114 and for crew rotation for 41 months until STS-121.
-Wikipedia
Photo Caption – The crew of STS-107 in October 2001 – from left – Brown, Husband, Clark, Chawla, Anderson, McCool, Ramon – spaceflight.nasa.gov