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.
Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
After the accident, NASA's Space Shuttle fleet was grounded for almost three years while the investigation, hearings, engineering redesign of the SRBs, and other behind-the-scenes technical and management reviews, changes, and preparations were taking place. At 11:37 on September 29, 1988, Space Shuttle "Discovery" lifted off with a crew of five from Kennedy Space Center pad 39-B. It carried a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, TDRS-C (named TDRS-3 after deployment), which replaced TDRS-B, the satellite that was launched and lost on "Challenger". The "Return to Flight" launch of "Discovery" also represented a test of the redesigned boosters, a shift to a more conservative stance on safety (e.g., it was the first time the crew had launched in pressure suits since STS-4, the last of the four initial Shuttle test flights), and a chance to restore national pride in the American space program, especially manned space flight. The mission, STS-26, was a success (with only two minor system failures, one of a cabin cooling system and one of a Ku-band antenna), and a regular schedule of STS flights followed, continuing without extended interruption until the 2003 "Columbia" disaster.