It was a cool Thursday morning in Cape Canaveral as the nation's first space shuttle was about to make its last ever trip into space.

Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off at 10:39 a.m. Eastern time on Jan. 16, 2003, from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-A with a crew of seven.

"The Lord has blessed us with a beautiful day here," mission commander Rick Husband said over the radio just before liftoff. "We appreciate all of the hard work everyone has put into this, and we are ready to go."

Husband's crew were shuttle pilot William McCool, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon, who was the first Israeli to go into space.

All seven died 16 days later when the shuttle disintegrated on re-entry, the result of a chunk of insulating foam that had broken off from the external fuel tank and hit the left wing of the orbiter during the launch. The damage was fatal as the extreme heat would be the vessel's demise as it streaked across the skies over Texas.

Columbia's final mission was the orbiter's 28th overall, the 113th mission for the shuttle program.