CNN to debut 4-part series on Space Shuttle Columbia disaster

CNN is debuting a four-part series looking back at the events that led to the death of seven astronauts on board Space Shuttle Columbia when it was destroyed on its way back home from space in 2003.

“Space Shuttle Columbia: The Final Flight” promises “exclusive first-hand testimony” from family members of the crew and “key players at NASA – some of whom have never spoken before,” according to a press release from the network.

Two of the four parts will debut Sunday at 9 p.m. with the final two airing the following Sunday, April 14.

“I didn’t know at that time that anything concerning had happened,” said Sandra Hawkins Anderson, the wife of STS-107 mission specialist Michael Anderson in a trailer preview for the series. “There were people that did, though.”

Anderson died Feb. 3, 2023, aside mission commander Rick Husband, pilot William McCool, and mission specialists David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon, who was the first Israeli to go into space. Columbia broke up in the skies over Texas on its way to try and land back at Kennedy Space Center.

The crew launched on Jan. 16, 2003, from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A. A chunk of insulating foam that had broken off from the external fuel tank hit the left wing of the orbiter during the launch.

The damage turned fatal as the extreme heat of reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere caused the ship’s demise. Investigations into the damage after the disaster revealed a similar culture of silence within NASA partly to blame for the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion 17 years earlier.

The series will uncover “how financial pressures and a culture of complacency may have contributed to the events,” CNN’s release stated.

The trailer also shows the grown-up children talking about the dangers their parents told them about spaceflight.

“My dad chose a profession that is dangerous,” said Anderson’s daughter Kaycee. “He’s like, ‘But, we don’t want to fearful about it.’ He died doing what he loved.”

The series is co-produced by the BBC and Mindhouse Productions and will feature footage that has never been broadcast, CNN stated, including scenes taken by the astronauts during their 16 days of spaceflight before the fatal reentry.

“This chapter in the Space Shuttle Program captured the nation’s attention and is equally as captivating in the retelling, with storytelling fueled by those who lived it firsthand and newly revealed footage from the NASA archive,” said CNN Originals executive Amy Entelis in a press release.

Columbia’s final mission was the orbiter’s 28th overall, the 113th mission for the shuttle program. It was the first of five space shuttles, launching on its first mission April 12, 1981, with the late John Young on board as commander along with pilot Robert Crippen.

Over 22 years, Columbia traveled more than 125 million miles orbiting the Earth 4,808 times while in space more than 300 days.

It ferried 160 astronauts over its career including Shannon Lucid, Story Musgrave, Eileen Collins, Charles Boldin and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a former U.S. senator.

The tragedy is one of three major ones in NASA’s history, all occurring in the early part of the year. The seven deaths aboard Columbia, seven deaths from the explosion of Challenger in 1986, the deaths of three Apollo 1 astronauts in 1967, which are honored each year on NASA’s Day of Remembrance along with others who have lost their lives in the pursuit of space.

NASA officials have made that the cornerstone of what is now a nonstop effort to battle institutional silence within the agency so that future disasters can be avoided.

“The bottom line is this. Speak up. A question, even a simple question is more forgivable than a mistake that can result in a tragedy, and each of us has a responsibility to cultivate a work environment where every member of the NASA family feels empowered to voice doubt,” Nelson said during a 2023 speech. “Make your concerns heard. Communicate openly.”