Air Force, and several universities also flew experiments in the Spacehab. Charles to refer to the mission’s research as doing “simulated space station science, although the science itself stands on its own right.” The Canadian Space Agency, the German Space Agency, the U.S.

Many of these experiments had application for future studies aboard the space station, prompting STS-107 Mission Scientist John B. These included nine commercial payloads involving 21 separate investigations, four payloads for the European Space Agency with 14 investigations, one investigation to mitigate risk for the International Space Station, and 18 payloads supporting 23 investigations for NASA in the fields of physical and biological sciences. The astronauts worked directly with 32 payloads including 59 investigations in the Spacehab Research Double Module. The STS-107 mission included a total of 80 experiments in a variety of research disciplines and carried out in different parts of the space shuttle. McCool, Brown, Clark, Ramon, Anderson, and Chawla pose in front ofĪT-38 Talon training aircraft at Ellington Field in Houston. Husband during the preflight press conference. Left: STS-107 crew of Ilan Ramon, left, Laurel B. When assigned to the flight, the crew trained for an August 2001 launch, but various factors such as delays in Columbia’s refurbishment, technical issues affecting the space shuttle fleet, and competing priorities with a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission and International Space Station assembly flights caused that date to slip to January 2003. President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres on space cooperation between the two nations. Ramon’s participation grew out of a 1995 agreement between U.S. Clark, and Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon of the Israeli Space Agency, adding Commander Rick D. In September 2000, NASA named the five-member science crew of Payload Commander Michael P.

NASA first announced the STS-107 microgravity research mission, assigned to space shuttle Columbia, in March 1998, with a then-planned launch in May 2000, a date that began to slip almost immediately. Tragically, the astronauts perished when Columbia broke apart during reentry on Feb. The astronauts exceeded scientists’ expectations in terms of the science obtained during their 16 days in space.

and international experiments aboard a Spacehab Double Research Module in Columbia’s payload bay. The seven-member crew would conduct many of the 80 planned U.S. The first flight of the year, STS-107 aboard NASA’s oldest orbiter Columbia, the first shuttle mission dedicated to microgravity research in nearly five years, would not travel to the space station but fly a 16-day solo mission. The year 2003 was shaping up to be an ambitious one for NASA, with six space shuttle missions planned, five to continue construction of the ever-growing and permanently occupied International Space Station.

Space shuttle explosion 2003