Remembrance Service to Mark 5th Anniversary of Columbia Accident at Kennedy Space Center
January 29th, 2008
Kennedy Space Center, FL - On Friday, February 1, 2008, at 10:00 a.m., The Astronauts Memorial Foundation (AMF) will conduct a ceremony to honor the crew of Space Shuttle Columbia STS-107 on the 5th anniversary of the Columbia accident. The Astronauts Memorial Foundation honors and memorializes all astronauts who have sacrificed their lives for the nation and the space program. The ceremony will be held at the Space Mirror Memorial at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
Speakers will include Evelyn Husband-Thompson, widow of Colonel Rick Husband, Commander of Columbia; William Parsons, Kennedy Space Center Director; Colonel Eileen Collins, Return to Flight Space Shuttle Commander; William Gerstenmaier, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Operations; William Readdy, Space Shuttle Commander and former NASA Associate Administrator for Space Operations; G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organization; and Michael Griffin, NASA Administrator. The Astronauts Memorial Foundation’s President, Dr. Stephen Feldman, will lead the service.
The Space Shuttle Columbia’s crew of seven astronauts perished when Columbia broke apart during re-entry on February 1, 2003. The crew included Commander Rick Husband, Pilot William McCool, Payload Commander Michael Anderson, Mission Specialists David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, and Laurel Clark, and Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon.
The public is invited to attend the service. Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex will provide flowers for all ceremony guests and visitors throughout the day to place at the memorial. For more information, call 321-449-4400 or visit www.kennedyspacecenter.com.
The Astronauts Memorial Foundation, a private, not-for-profit organization, built and maintains the Space Mirror Memorial, which was dedicated in 1991 to honor all astronauts who lost their lives on missions or during training and has since been designated a National Memorial by Congress, and the Center for Space Education, a living memorial to the astronauts. For more information, call 321-452-2887 or visit www.astronautsmemorialfoundation.org.
