This Echo is READ ONLY !   NO Un-Authorized Messages Please!
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Glenn Mahone/Bob Jacobs
Headquarters, Washington              Feb. 28, 2003
(Phone: 202/358-1600)

Eileen M. Hawley
Johnson Space Center, Houston
(Phone: 281/483-5111)

NOTE TO EDITORS: N03-23

NASA RELEASES COLUMBIA CREW CABIN VIDEO

     Flight-deck video, taken by members of the Space Shuttle Columbia 
crew on Feb. 1, will be released at 1 p.m. EST today on NASA 
Television. The videotape was recovered February 6 near Palestine, 
Texas, during search and recovery efforts after the tragedy. 

The video is about 13 minutes long and shows flight-deck activity 
beginning about 8:35 a.m. EST as Columbia passed over the south 
central Pacific Ocean at an altitude of approximately 500,000 feet. It 
continues until approximately 8:48 a.m. EST, when Columbia was over 
the eastern Pacific Ocean, southwest of the San Francisco Bay area. 
The video ends approximately 11 minutes prior to loss of signal 
between the orbiter and Mission Control.

Commander Rick Husband, Pilot Willie McCool, Mission Specialists 
Kalpana Chawla and Laurel Clark were on the flight deck during 
reentry. In the video, they can be heard conversing among themselves 
and working through routine checklist activities with flight 
controllers in Mission Control.

Mission Specialists Mike Anderson and Dave Brown, and Payload 
Specialist Ilan Ramon were on Columbia's mid-deck during reentry. The 
video was shot with a small onboard camera mounted to the right of 
McCool, who then removes it and hands it to Clark for additional 
filming. 

NASA Television is on GE-2, transponder 9C, and vertical polarization 
at 85 degrees west longitude, 3880 MHz, with audio at 6.8 MHz.

More information about the Space Shuttle Columbia investigation and 
NASA is available on the Internet at: www.nasa.gov and www.caib.us

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