WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

Rob Navias (left), Public Affairs Office (PAO) commentator, and Dan Carpenter, Director of PAO, are pictured at their consoles in the shuttle flight control room (WFCR) in Houston’s Mission Control Center (MCC) in support of the STS-107 mission. At the time this photo was taken the Space Shuttle Columbia was about to launch at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Columbia launched at 9:39 a.m. (CST) on January 16, 2003. Once the vehicle cleared the tower in Florida, the Houston-based team of flight controllers took over the ground control of the flight.