NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Deputy Administrator Lori Garver will lay a wreath at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on Jan 27, to commemorate the agency’s National Day of Remembrance.
NASA has an agency-wide Day of Remembrance every Jan to honor the fallen crews of Apollo 1, space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, and all of those who have given their lives in the cause of exploration.
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Director and former astronaut Bob Cabana will take part in a wreath-laying at the Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. The ceremony is open to media representatives and the general public.
At NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Center Director Michael L. Coats will be joined by astronaut family members to lay a wreath at the Astronaut Memorial Tree Grove at 11:30 a.m. on Jan 27.
Friday, Jan 28, marks the 25th anniversary of the Challenger accident. The Astronauts Memorial Foundation will hold a remembrance service honoring the STS-51L crew members at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. NASA Television will provide live coverage of the event, which will take place at the visitor complex’s Space Mirror Memorial.
Speakers at the event include Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for Space Operations; June Scobee Rodgers, widow of STS-51L Commander Dick Scobee; Robert Cabana, former astronaut and director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center; and Michael McCulley, former astronaut and chairman of the Astronauts Memorial Foundation.
Challenger’s seven astronauts died shortly after launch on Jan 28, 1986. The crew consisted of Commander Scobee, Pilot Michael J. Smith, Mission Specialists Judith A. Resnik, Ellison S. Onizuka, and Ronald E. McNair, and Payload Specialists Gregory B. Jarvis and Sharon Christa McAuliffe.
The Astronauts Memorial Foundation, a private, not-for-profit organization, built and maintains the Space Mirror Memorial. The memorial was dedicated in 1991 to honor all astronauts who lost their lives on missions or during training. It since has been designated a National Memorial by Congress.