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KSC Visitor Complex sets new NASA Day of Remembrance ceremony date

Annual ceremony delayed due to government shutdown

1967: Astronauts (from left to right) Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee die in a fire during a test of their Apollo 1 spacecraft at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. While what triggered the cabin fire was never conclusively identified, the astronauts' deaths were blamed on a range of lethal design and construction flaws in the early Apollo command module. Manned flights in the Apollo program were suspended for 20 months while those problems were corrected. Grissom, White and Chaffee are seen here 10 days before the fatal fire. (NASA)

TITUSVILLE, Fla. – The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex will host NASA's annual Day of Remembrance ceremony next week. The ceremony was postponed due to the partial federal government shutdown.

The ceremony on Feb. 7 will honor all astronauts and personnel who sacrificed their lives for space exploration.

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NASA Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana and Astronauts Memorial Foundation CEO Thad Altman will speak at the ceremony, which will be held in front of the Space Mirror Memorial.

Sheryl Chaffee, the daughter of late Apollo 1 astronaut Roger Chaffee, and vice char of the Astronauts Memorial Foundation board of directors will also make remarks at the ceremony.

Roger Chaffee, along with astronauts Gus Grissom and Ed White were killed when a flash fire engulfed the Apollo 1 capsule during a launch rehearsal on Jan. 27, 1967.

The fire investigation grounded the Apollo program and 18 months passed before another astronaut was launched into space.

A memorial plaque at the former Launch Complex 34 site where the Apollo 1 crew died reads “Remember them not for how they died but for those ideals for which they lived.”

Attendees will be able to pay their respects to fallen space heroes at the Space Mirror Memorial with flowers.

The original ceremony was set to take place Thursday but NASA officials postponed it as the space agency is coming out of a partial shutdown.


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