NASA Day of Remembrance 2013, Arlington National Cemetery

01-Feb-2013 through 01-Feb-2013

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and Deputy Administrator Lori Garver will honor the astronauts who lost their lives at the annual NASA Day of Remembrance at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA, on  February 1, 2013.  The wreath-laying ceremonies begin at 9:30 am ET.   

Also, Kennedy Space Center and the Astronaut Memorial Foundation will hold an event beginning at 10:00 am ET that will be broadcast on NASA TV.

The day honors all the astronauts who died, and this year February 1 is the 10th anniversary of the loss of STS-107, Columbia, and its crew of seven.  Columbia disintegrated during its return to Earth when superheated air entered the shuttle's wing through a hole that had been created during launch when it was hit by a piece of foam that came off the External Tank.  The seven Columbia crew members were:

• Commander Rick Husband (NASA)
• Pilot Willilam McCool (NASA)
• Payload Commander Michael Anderson (NASA)
• Mission Specialist David Brown (NASA)
• Mission Specialist Kalpana Chawla (NASA)
• Mission Specialist Laurel Clark (NASA)
• Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon (Israeli Air Force)

The day also honors the first Apollo crew --

• Virgil "Gus" Grissom
• Ed White
• Rogert Chaffee

who died on January 27, 1967 when a fire erupted in their Apollo capsule during a ground test,

and the crew of space shuttle Challenger --

• Francis "Dick" Scobee (NASA)
• Michael Smith (NASA)
• Judy Resnik (NASA)
• Ellison Onizuka (NASA)
• Ron McNair (NASA)
• Greg Jarvis (Hughes Aircraft)
• Christa McAuliffe (schoolteacher)

who died on January 28, 1986 when an O-ring on one of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters failed, leading to an explosion that destroyed the shuttle 73 seconds after launch.

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