Nine years ago today, we experienced a terrible tragedy. On February 1, 2003, the seven-member crew of STS-107 was lost when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana on its re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.
Before this disaster, the Space Shuttle Columbia performed exceptionally well and was instrumental in many important missions into low-Earth orbit. One of its trips into space that we are particularly fond of is STS-93 that delivered Chandra into space.
So we would like to honor Columbia by taking a moment to celebrate all of the accomplishments of the spacecraft and, of course, its fabulous crew that were lost.
-Megan Watzke, CXC