On this day in 2003, while returning to Earth from an orbital mission, the U.S. space shuttle Columbia broke up catastrophically at an altitude of about 40 miles (60 km) over Texas, killing all seven crew members.
The disaster claimed the lives of all seven astronauts on board just minutes before it was to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Columbia made the shuttle program’s first flight into space in 1981 and lifted off for its 28th mission, STS-107, on January 16, 2003.
STS-107 was a flight dedicated to various experiments that required a microgravity environment.
The crew comprised commander Rick Husband; pilot William McCool; mission specialists Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, and Laurel Clark; and payload specialist Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut.
As Columbia was reentering Earth’s atmosphere, it broke apart over Texas at approximately 9:00 am Eastern Standard Time at an altitude of 60 km (40 miles), showering debris across southeastern Texas and southern Louisiana.
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