Space Shuttle Columbia hurtles through a
perfect blue Florida sky following a flawless and uneventful
countdown. Liftoff of Columbia on mission STS-107 occurred on-time at
10:39 a.m. EST. The 16-day research mission will include FREESTAR
(Fast Reaction Experiments Enabling Science, Technology, Applications
and Research) and the SHI Research Double Module (SHI/RDM), known as
SPACEHAB. Experiments on the module range from material sciences to
life sciences. Landing is scheduled at about 8:53 a.m. EST on
Saturday, Feb. 1. This mission is the first Shuttle mission of
2003. Mission STS-107 is the 28th flight of the orbiter Columbia and
the 113th flight overall in NASA's Space Shuttle program