WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

Competing with the brilliant blue sky,
flames behind Space Shuttle Columbia trail a column of smoke as the
Shuttle hurtles toward space on mission STS-107. Following a flawless
and uneventful countdown, liftoff occurred on-time at 10:39
a.m. EST. The 16-day research mission will include FREESTAR (Fast
Reaction Experiments Enabling Science, Technology, Applications and
Research) and the SHI Research Double Module (SHI/RDM), known as
SPACEHAB. Experiments on the module range from material sciences to
life sciences. Landing is scheduled at about 8:53 a.m. EST on
Saturday, Feb. 1. 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.