2003 shuttle disaster crew. Portrait of the crew of the shuttle mission STS-107,during which the space shuttle Columbia exploded on re-entry. On the top row,from left to right,are David Brown,Laurel Clark,Michael Anderson and Ilan Ramon. On the bottom row,from left to right,are mission commander Rick Husband,Kalpana Chawla and William McCool. STS-107 launched on 16th January 2003 to conduct scientific experiments. Columbia was about 65 kilometres up and travelling at 20,000 kilometres per hour when it exploded. Debris was scattered over a wide area of the southern USA,mostly in Texas and Louisiana. It is thought a heat shield failure may have led to the explosion |