Space Science mission launch

STS 107 Columbia

The launch looked picture-perfect in the mid-morning Florida sun, and even though cameras caught the image of debris from the External Tank (ET) impacting Columbia’s wing’s leading edge, it was discounted as having occurred before with no ill consequence. As the book, ‘Comm Check’, (Cabbage/Harwood) relates, the NASA team was waiting during reentry to regain contact after a normal blackout period: "We didn’t hear anything and we kept waiting and nothing. Then we knew it wasn’t going to be good. It was approaching landing time and we got to landing time and there was no orbiter in sight. We waited a couple more minutes and said ‘You know, this is it. They are not coming to Florida today’. " – Bob Cabana, astronaut and Director of Flight Crew Operations, Johnson Space Center. Columbia and her crew were gone.