NASA televises Columbia remembrance ceremony on 5th anniversary

William Atkins
Wednesday, 23 January 2008 19:26

Science - Space

On February 1, 2008, five years after the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas as it descended to Earth, NASA will provide live coverage of the Astronauts Memorial Foundation’s remembrance service.     

The ceremony will be conducted from the Space Mirror Memorial at the NASA Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex at 10:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on February 1.

Coverage for the Columbia fifth anniversary ceremony will be provided by NASA TV.

Scheduled speakers for the event include: NASA administrator Michael Griffin, KSC director Bill Parsons, NASA associate administrator for space operations William Gerstenmaier, former NASA associate administrator for space operations William Readdy, STS-114 shuttle commander Eileen Collins, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chairman G. Madhavan Nair, and Evelyn Husband-Thompson (widow of Rick Husband).

The seven NASA astronauts killed on February 1, 2003 at the end of the  STS-107 mission were:

U.S. Air Force colonel and STS-107 commander Richard “Rick” Douglas Husband

U.S. Navy commander and STS-107 pilot William “Willie” Cameron McCool

U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and STS-107 payload commander Michael Phillip Anderson

Indian-American research scientist and STS-107 flight engineer Kalpana Chawla

U.S. Navy caption and STS-107 mission specialist David McDowell Brown

U.S. Navy captain, American medical doctor, and STS-107 mission specialist Laurel Blair Salton Clark

Israeli Air Force colonel and STS-107 payload specialist IIan Ramon

The Astronauts Memorial Foundation is a private, not-for-profit organization that was created in 1991 to honor all astronauts who have lost their lives on missions or during training. It maintains the Space Mirror Memorial, now designated a National Memorial by the U.S. Congress.
For NASA television information, schedules, and video links, go to: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

For information about Columbia's STS-107 crew, go to: http://www.nasa.gov/columbia.

Note: NASA January 15, 2008 “Media Advisory: M08-011: NASA TV to Air Columbia Crew Remembrance Service” press release.