NASA Marks 10th Anniversary of Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster

NASA on 1 February 2013 marks 10th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Columbia that perished into the atmosphere of the Earth upon its re-entry. Seven astronauts were aboard Columbia which disintegrated across southern United States. The debris of Columbia spread across 200-mile stretch from Texas to Louisiana.

NASA decided to mark the anniversary in just the low-key ceremonies in Texas as well as Florida in order to honour the crew members of Columbia along with those who died in the Challenger shuttle explosion on 28 January 1986.

Participants of the ceremony include family members of the crew who waited at Kennedy on 1 February 2003 when Columbia was about to land. The seven crew members on-board included Commander Rick Husband, co-pilot William McCool, specialists Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, Michael Anderson, David Brown, and Ilan Ramon, an Israeli fighter pilot.

Columbia broke into pieces on re-entering the atmosphere of the Earth. The cause for its explosion was attributed towards the piece of foam which dropped from external rocket tank on launch, which eventually created a hole in the shuttle wing.