STS-107

STS-107 was the 113th flight of the Space Shuttle program, and the 28th and final flight of Space Shuttle Columbia. The mission ended on February 1, 2003, with the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, in which all seven crew members were killed; the shuttle was destroyed along with most of its scientific payloads.
The flight launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 16, 2003. It spent 15 days, 22 hours, 20 minutes, 32 seconds in orbit. The crew conducted a multitude of international scientific experiments. The disaster occurred during reentry while the orbiter was over Texas.
Immediately after the disaster, NASA convened the Columbia Accident Investigation Board to determine the cause of the disintegration. The source of the failure was determined to have been caused by a piece of foam that broke off during launch and damaged the thermal protection system on the leading edge of the orbiter's left wing. During re-entry the damaged wing slowly overheated and came apart, eventually leading to loss of control and disintegration of the vehicle. The cockpit window frame is now exhibited in a memorial inside the Space Shuttle Atlantis Pavilion at the Kennedy Space Center.
The damage to the thermal protection system on the wing was similar to that of Atlantis which had also sustained damage in 1988 during STS-27, the second mission after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. However, the damage on STS-27 occurred at a spot that had more robust metal, and that mission survived the re-entry.

Crew

Crew seat assignments

Mission highlights

STS-107 carried the SPACEHAB Research Double Module on its inaugural flight, the Freestar experiment , and the Extended Duration Orbiter pallet. SPACEHAB was first flown on STS-57.
The primary mission focus was multidisciplinary microgravity research.
On the day of the experiment, a video taken to study atmospheric dust may have detected a new atmospheric phenomenon, dubbed a "TIGER".
On board Columbia was a copy of a drawing by Petr Ginz, the editor-in-chief of the magazine Vedem, who depicted what he imagined the Earth looked like from the Moon when he was a 14-year-old prisoner in the Terezín concentration camp. The copy was in the possession of Ilan Ramon and was lost in the disintegration. Ramon also traveled with a dollar bill received from the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
An Australian experiment, created by students from Glen Waverley Secondary College, was designed to test the reaction of zero gravity on the web formation of the Australian garden orb weaver spider.

Major experiments

Examples of some of the experiments and investigations on the mission.
In SPACEHAB RDM:

9 commercial payloads with 21 investigations;
4 payloads for the European Space Agency with 14 investigations;
1 payload for ISS Risk Mitigation;
18 payloads NASA's Office of Biological and Physical Research with 23 investigations.

In the payload bay attached to RDM:

Combined Two-Phase Loop Experiment ;
Miniature Satellite Threat Reporting System ;
Star Navigation.

FREESTAR

Critical Viscosity of Xenon-2 ;
Space Experiment Module ;
Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment ;
Low Power Transceiver ;
Solar Constant Experiment-3 ;
Shuttle Ozone Limb Sounding Experiment ;

Additional payloads

Shuttle Ionospheric Modification with Pulsed Local Exhaust Experiment ;
Ram Burn Observation.
Results and data gained

3 experiments examined combustion, soot production, and fire quenching processes in microgravity which provided new insights into combustion and fire suppression not able to be observed in Earth conditions. Other things included:

An experiment which aided our understanding of construction techniques.
Another for biological applications that can be used to combat prostate cancer and another to increase crop yield.
As well as several other experiments who's results aided in the scientific process.
Data recovery

Because much of the data was transmitted during the mission, there was still large return on the mission objectives even though Columbia was lost on re-entry. NASA estimated that 30% of the total science data was saved and collected through telemetry back to ground stations. Around 5-10% more data was saved and collected through recovering samples and hard drives intact on the ground after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, increasing the total data of saved experiments despite the disaster from 30% to 35-40%.
About five or six Columbia payloads encompassing many experiments were successfully recovered in the debris field. Scientists and engineers were able to recover 99% of the data for one of the six FREESTAR experiments, Critical Viscosity of Xenon-2, that flew unpressurized in the payload bay during the mission after recovering the viscometer and hard drive damaged but fully intact in the debris field in Texas. NASA recovered a commercial payload, Commercial Instrumentation Technology Associates Biomedical Experiments-2, and ITA was able to increase the total data saved from STS-107 from 0% to 50% for this payload. This experiment studied treatments for cancer, and the micro-encapsulation experiment part of the payload was completely recovered, increasing from 0% data to 90% data after recovering the samples fully intact for this experiment. In this same payload were numerous crystal-forming experiments by hundreds of elementary and middle school students from all across the United States. Miraculously most of their experiments were found intact in CIBX-2, increasing from 0% data to 100% fully recovered data. The BRIC-14 and BRIC-60 samples were found intact in the debris field within a radius in east Texas. 80-87% of these live organisms survived the catastrophe. The moss and roundworms experiments' original primary mission was not nominal due to the lack of having the samples immediately after landing in their original state, but these samples helped the scientific community greatly in the field of astrobiology and helped form new theories about microorganisms surviving a long trip in outer space while traveling on meteorites or asteroids.

Re-entry

Columbia began re-entry as planned, but the heat shield was compromised due to damage sustained during the ascent during which foam insulation from the external tank struck its left wing. The heat of re-entry was free to spread into the damaged portion of the orbiter, ultimately causing its disintegration and the death of all seven astronauts.

Aftermath

Upon realizing the tragedy, the Mission Control Center was locked and all of the data was saved for the coming investigation. Within 90 minutes a meeting was convened and the Columbia Accident Investigation Board was formed. They confirmed the cause of the accident and criticized NASA for bad organizational and safety culture.
The accident triggered a 7-month investigation and a search for debris, and over 85,000 pieces were collected throughout the initial investigation. This amounted to roughly 38 percent of the orbiter vehicle.

Insignia

The mission insignia itself is the only patch of the shuttle program that is entirely shaped in the orbiter's outline. The central element of the patch is the microgravity symbol, μg, flowing into the rays of the astronaut symbol.
The mission inclination is portrayed by the 39-degree angle of the astronaut symbol to the Earth's horizon. The sunrise is representative of the numerous experiments that are the dawn of a new era for continued microgravity research on the International Space Station and beyond. The breadth of science and the exploration of space is illustrated by the Earth and stars. The constellation Columba was chosen to symbolize peace on Earth and the Space Shuttle Columbia. The seven stars also represent the mission crew members and honor the original astronauts who paved the way to make research in space possible. Six stars have five points, the seventh has six points like a Star of David, symbolizing the Israeli Space Agency's contributions to the mission.
An Israeli flag is adjacent to the name of Payload Specialist Ramon, who was the first Israeli in space. The crew insignia or 'patch' design was initiated by crew members Dr. Laurel Clark and Dr. Kalpana Chawla. First-time crew member Clark provided most of the design concepts as Chawla led the design of her maiden voyage STS-87 insignia. Clark also pointed out that the dove in the Columba constellation was mythologically connected to the explorers the Argonauts who released the dove.

Wake-up calls

Throughout the shuttle program, sleeping astronauts were often awakened each morning by songs and short pieces of music chosen by their families, friends, and Mission Control, a tradition dating back to the Gemini and Apollo programs. While the crew of STS-107 worked shifts in "red" and "blue" teams to work around the clock, on this mission each shift was still awoken with a "wake-up call"; the only other two-shift shuttle mission to do so was STS-99.

Day	Team	Song	Artist/Performer	Played for	Link
2	Blue8px	"E'mma"	Touré Kunda	David Brown
2	Red8px	"America, the Beautiful"	Texas Elementary Honors Choir	Rick Husband
3	Blue8px	"Coming Back to Life"	Pink Floyd	William McCool
3	Red8px	"Space Truckin'"	Deep Purple	Kalpana Chawla
4	Blue8px	"Cultural Exchange"	Not listed	David Brown
4	Red8px	"Hatishma Koli"	The High Windows	Ilan Ramon
5	Blue8px	"Fake Plastic Trees"	Radiohead	William McCool
5	Red8px	"Amazing Grace"	Black Watch and 51st Highland Brigade Band	Laurel Clark
6	Blue8px	"Texan 60"	Not listed	David Brown
6	Red8px	"God of Wonders"	Steve Green	Rick Husband
7	Blue8px	"The Wedding Song"	Paul Stookey	William McCool
7	Red8px	"Prabhati"	Ravi Shankar	Kalpana Chawla
8	Blue8px	"Hakuna Matata"	The Baha Men	Michael Anderson
8	Red8px	"Ma ata oseh kesheata kam baboker?"	Arik Einstein	Ilan Ramon
9	Blue8px	"Burning Down The House"	Talking Heads	To honor combustion experiments
9	Red8px	"Kung Fu Fighting"	Carl Douglas	Whole crew
10	Blue8px	"Hotel California"	The Eagles / McCool Family	William McCool
10	Red8px	"The Prayer"	Celine Dion	Rick Husband
11	Blue8px	"I Say a Little Prayer"	Dionne Warwick	Michael Anderson
11	Red8px	"Drops of Jupiter"	Train	Kalpana Chawla
12	Blue8px	"When Day Is Done"	Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli	David Brown
12	Red8px	"Love of My Life"	Queen	Ilan Ramon
13	Blue8px	"Slow Boat to Rio"	Earl Klugh	Michael Anderson
13	Red8px	"Running to the Light"	Runrig	Laurel Clark
14	Blue8px	"I Get Around"	The Beach Boys	David Brown
14	Red8px	"Up On the Roof"	James Taylor	Rick Husband
15	Blue8px	"Imagine"	John Lennon	William McCool
15	Red8px	"Yaar ko hamne ja ba ja dekha"	Abita Parveen	Kalpana Chawla
16	Blue8px	"Silver Inches"	Enya	David Brown
16	Red8px	"Shalom lach eretz nehederet"	Yehoram Gaon	Ilan Ramon
17	Blue8px	"If You've Been Delivered"	Kirk Franklin	Michael Anderson
17	Red8px	"Scotland the Brave"	The Black Watch and 51st Highland Brigade Band	Laurel Clark