Video: 'Columbia Accident News Coverage, CNN and NBC, February 1, 2003 (Volume 1 of 3)'

(Saturday, February 1, 2003, 9:00:18 a.m. EST; during STS-107) — The space shuttle Columbia broke up this morning on re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts on board and sending fiery debris over Texas in the second loss of a space shuttle in 17 years.

During the STS-107 launch, a piece of the insulative foam broke off from the Space Shuttle’s external tank and struck the thermal protection system tiles on the orbiter’s left wing.

Similar foam shedding had occurred during previous Space Shuttle launches, causing damage that ranged from minor to near-catastrophic, but some engineers suspected that the damage to Columbia was more serious.

Video: 'Columbia Accident News Coverage, CBS, ABC, Fox, and CNN, February 1, 2003 (Volume 2 of 3)'

Before re-entry, NASA managers had limited the investigation, reasoning that the crew could not have fixed the problem if it had been confirmed.

When Columbia re-entered the atmosphere of Earth, the damage allowed hot atmospheric gases to penetrate the heat shield and destroy the internal wing structure, which caused the orbiter to become unstable and break apart.

The disaster occurred roughly 40 miles above Earth as the shuttle slipped into the netherworld between outer space and the upper atmosphere, just as it was slowing to 12,500 miles an hour and was minutes from its destination, the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Video: 'Columbia Accident News Coverage, CNN, February 1, 2003 (Volume 3 of 3)'

Yet as the countdown clock at the landing site in Florida reached zero at 9:16 a.m., with an eerie silence and no sign of the shuttle, flaming debris was already falling in East Texas, and then in Louisiana.

Just minutes before the spaceship was lost, flight specialists in Houston had been communicating with the crew, talking about tire pressure on the Columbia. Nothing appeared wrong. Then Mission Control in Houston said, “We did not copy your last.”

“Roger, uh —— ” came the reply from the shuttle, and then there was silence, as if the astronaut had been cut off in midsentence, and then just static.

Video: 'Space Shuttle Columbia - Falling Star HD'

Silent confirmation of the crew’s deaths came around noon today, as the White House lowered its flag to half-staff. Much as viewers around the world knew the meaning of the terrifying images they saw on Jan. 28, 1986, when the Challenger exploded, they understood instinctively that there was no chance any of the five men and two women aboard the Columbia could survive a disintegration so high in the sky.

The best-known member of the crew was the first Israeli to go into space, Ilan Ramon, a colonel in the Israeli Air Force who more than two decades ago participated in Israel’s attack on a nuclear reactor in Iraq, and has long been a national hero.

The flight was under the command of Col. Rick D. Husband of the Air Force and piloted by a Navy commander, William C. McCool. The mission was an unusual one for NASA these days in that it was intended purely for scientific experiments, more than 90 in all.

Video: 'In Memoriam - Space Shuttle Columbia Crew'

More commonly, the shuttle is used to transport crew, equipment, and supplies to the International Space Station, and to support military missions.

The scientific payload was overseen by Lt. Col. Michael P. Anderson of the Air Force; Dr. Kalpana Chawla, an aerospace engineer; and two Navy doctors, Capt. David M. Brown and Cmdr. Laurel Salton Clark.

The re-entry began about 14 minutes before the breakup. Re-entry has long been considered one of the riskiest moments in space flight when a spacecraft is subjected to temperatures over 2,000 degrees as it speeds through the atmosphere.