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ASTRONAUT MEMORIAL SUNDAY JAN. 25, 1 PM ESTAT SANDPOINT PARK, TITUSVILLE
TITUSVILLE, FLORIDA
The annual Astronaut Memorial Ceremony for the 17 crew members of Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia who perished in America’s space program will be conducted Sunday Jan. 25 at 1 pm EST at Sand Point Park in Titusville, Florida.
Three-time Space Shuttle astronaut Jan Davis will be the keynote speaker. The public is invited to attend this reverent and patriotic ceremony that honors the lives and sacrifice made by these pioneers of NASA’s manned space program.
The annual remembrance is hosted by the City of Titusville Flag & Memorial Committee and the American Space Museum. The Titusville Garden Club provides the flowers for this honorable ceremony. The event is free and open to the public.
The event includes a keynote address, patriotic songs, a host of city and county dignitaries, participation from the Knights of Columbus, the Civil Air Patrol, a rifle salute and placement of flowers on the 17 plaques at the park honoring the fallen space travelers.
The event will be broadcast on the American Space Museum’s YouTube channel.
Jan Davis is a three-time Space Shuttle Mission Specialist. She is also an accomplished engineer, industry executive, and author of her two memoirs tied to her aviator father: "Air Born: Two Generations in Flight” and “Air Born: Artistic Musings of a WWII Pilot and POW.”
Davis was born Jan Smotherman in Cocoa Beach, Florida, but grew up in Huntsville, Alabama. She is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Auburn University and University of Alabama, specializing in mechanical engineering.
Davis was chosen as an astronaut among the 15 candidates in the June 1987 NASA Group 12. A veteran of 28 days in space on three Shuttle missions, her first was in September 1992 on STS-47, Orbiter Endeavour, the 50th flight of the program. She operated systems in the Spacelab where more than 40 experiments took place on the 8-day flight.
Davis also flew on STS-60 in 1994 and STS-85 in 1997, both in Orbiter Discovery, where again she conducted experiments in life sciences, materials science and astronomy.
Davis worked for NASA until 2005 in various projects running from the Director of Flight Projects for the International Space Station at Marshall Space Flight Center to the head of Safety and Mission Assurance at Marshall, where she helped lead the safe return to flight of the Space Shuttle after the Columbia reentry disaster.
Those astronauts being remembered and the day they gave their ultimate sacrifice for America are:
Apollo 1, Jan. 27, 1967; Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White II and Roger Chaffee.
Challenger STS-51L, Jan. 28, 1986; Frances “Dick” Scobee, Michael Smith, Judy Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, Ronald McNair and Christa McAuliffe.
Columbia STS-107, Feb. 1, 2003, Rick D. Husband, William C. “Willie” McCool, David M. Brown, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson and Ilan Ramon of Israel.
An informal reception will be afterward from 3-4 pm at the American Space Museum in Downtown Titusville. For more information, contact Mark Marquette at [email protected] or call the museum at 321-264-0434.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Sandpoint Park, 101 N Washington Ave,Titusville, Florida, United States
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