David M. Brown
David McDowell Brown (April 16, 1956 – February 1, 2003) was a United States Navy captain and a NASA astronaut. He died on his first spaceflight, when the Space Shuttle "Columbia" (STS-107) disintegrated during orbital reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. Brown became an astronaut in 1996, but had not served on a space mission prior to the "Columbia" disaster. Brown was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
Brown, the 1986 recipient of the Navy Operational Flight Surgeon of the Year award, received numerous decorations including:
The symbol indicates a posthumous award.
Contemporary history
The first fully functional Space Shuttle orbiter was Columbia (designated OV-102), launched into Earth orbit in April 1981. In 1996, Shuttle mission STS-75 conducted research in space with the electrodynamic tether generator and other tether configurations. In 135 missions, the program suffered with two shuttles destroyed. The successful landing at Kennedy Space Center after completing STS-135 concluded the shuttle program. The Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program began in 2006. The retirement of NASA's Space Shuttle fleet took place from March to July 2011.