Columbia disaster, during launch. Footage of four members of the shuttle crew in the flight deck area of the Space Shuttle Columbia during its launch on mission STS-107. This launch took place at 10:39 EST (15:39 UTC) on 16 January 2003, from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA. The four US astronauts on the flight deck were Rick Husband (mission commander, upper left), William McCool (shuttle pilot, upper right), David M. Brown (lower right, seen leaving his seat at end of clip), and Kalpana Chawla (lower left). After carrying out their mission, the shuttle broke up on re-entry on 1 February 2003 due to damage sustained during the launch. All seven on board were killed. The other three members of the crew (seated in the mid-deck area) were Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon and US astronauts Laurel Clark and Michael P. Anderson. From 1994 to the end of the space shuttle programme, astronauts wore the Advanced Crew Escape Suit (ACES) during ascent and re-entry, but the subsequent investigation determined that the re-entry break-up had been a non-survivable event. |