Space Shuttle Lifts Off on Time

Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off on time this morning at 10:39 AM EST beginning the 16 day STS-107 mission.

This mission is the first Shuttle mission of 2003. Mission STS-107 is the 28th flight of the orbiter Columbia and the 113th flight overall in NASA’s Space Shuttle program.

Mission STS-107 is an international mission devoted to space research, the first dedicated research mission to be flown by the Shuttle in almost three years. Columbia will carry in its payload bay the SPACEHAB Research Double Module, a pressurized environment accessible to the crew. The module and the Shuttle’s middeck will hold most of the mission’s more than 80 experiments – involving more than 70 scientists worldwide – that will investigate space, life and physical sciences.

The STS-107 crew includes Commander Rick Husband, Pilot William McCool, Mission Specialists David Brown, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla and Michael Anderson, and Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon with the Israel Space Agency.