NASA to televise Columbia remembrance

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Jan. 16 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency will televise the Astronauts Memorial Foundation's remembrance service honoring space shuttle Columbia's STS-107 crew.

The ceremony marking the fifth anniversary of the Columbia accident will be 10 a.m. EST, Feb. 1 at the Space Mirror Memorial at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex at Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Speakers during the ceremony will include NASA Administrator Michael Griffin; Evelyn Husband-Thompson, widow of U.S. Air Force Col. Rick Husband; Kennedy Space Center Director Bill Parsons; and NASA Associate Administrator for Space Operations William Gerstenmaier.

Astronauts Memorial Foundation President Stephen Feldman will lead the service.

Columbia's seven astronauts were lost during re-entry Feb. 1, 2003, following a 16-day science mission. The crew members were Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon.

NASA TV downlink information is available at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.