Mission Control - Johnson Space Center

The Flight Control Room (FCR) is what most people think of as Mission Control.

The final transmission from Columbia heard in Mission Control.

An annotated transcript of flight director LeRoy Cain's flight director's loop, with NASA-to-English translations.

An exclusive time-compressed audio of LeRoy Cain's flight director's loop. The actual events happened over an hour but this time-compressed version removes the blank spots where nothing was said and has a running time of about 15 minutes. It's important to remember when listening to the audio that it is time compressed, so events may appear to occur very rapidly which took place several minutes apart.

NASA released a 20 minute compiled videotape several days after the accident showing the activities in the FCR. The video consists of several clips from a single cameraman so it isn't a real-time record of the events and can be misleading.



Mechanical Systems officer Jeff Kling starting to recognize that something's really wrong on Columbia.

Deputy Director of Flight Crew operations Ellen Ochoa reacts to the news that Columbia was destroyed.

Manager Phil Engelhauf informs flight director LeRoy Cain that a television station in Dallas is showing video of Columbia in pieces.

Entry flight director LeRoy Cain held back his emotions until after he gave the necessary instructions to his team.


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