Jan 25, 2011 07:05 GMT  ·  By

The American space agency has a dark week ahead, beginning on Thursday, January 27. For the next few days, it will commemorate the crews of the space shuttles Columbia and Challenger, lost in the line of duty, as well as the three astronauts that perished during a fire on the Apollo 1 mission.

The tragedy that saw the seven crew members of Challenger losing their lives will get its 25th commemoration, NASA officials say. This will also mark the eighth year of remembering since Columbia was destroyed, back in 2003.

The Apollo 1 accident is the oldest of them all, and also one of the first instances in which such a disaster occurred. The three astronauts that were testing the then-new spacecraft were caught in a fire within the command module, and could not escape.

According to the official NASA report, the module was undergoing ground testing just a week prior to launch, when a series of design flaws caused the craft to go up in flames. A review board determined that poor design was also responsible for astronauts' inability to get out in time.

On January 27, 1967, Apollo astronauts Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee gave their lives for progress, research and science, and the space agency, the United States and their families have not forgot them for it.

“It just always gives us pause at this time of the year, those of us that are in the industry, to reflect on our sad experiences in the past and the lives of those that made such a great contribution to our country,” says NASA official Wayne Hale.

He is a former space shuttle program manager, and also worked at the agency as a flight director during both the Challenger and Columbia accidents, Space reports.

“We have not forgotten the lessons from Apollo, and I sure hope we as an agency don’t forget these lessons we have learned,” adds the NASA associate administrator for space operations, Bill Gerstenmaier.

January 28 marks the 25th commemoration of the Challenger disaster, which took place in 1986, as the spacecraft was carrying out its tenth flight. Some 73 seconds into the launch, a rupture in a fuel tank caused the shuttle, its twin solid rocket boosters (SRB) and the external fuel tank to explode.

Francis Scobee, Ron McNair, Mike Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judy Resnik, Greg Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe are the seven astronauts that were lost that day, as the whole nation was watching the launch on national television.

On February 1, the agency will commemorate the loss of the space shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated in Earth's upper atmosphere as it was returning from the STS-107 mission.

The disaster was caused by loose health shield tiles, that were damaged during launch. This prompted NASA to introduce strict safety procedures for all subsequent orbiter flights.

The STS-107 crew was made up of Commander Rick Husband, pilot William McCool, and mission specialists Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, David Brown, payload commander Michael Anderson and Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon.

“I think the real underlying lesson is, our business is not easy. The things we do are very unforgiving. Very small, minor details count a lot and you really have to pay attention to those and really work those hard,” Gerstenmaier says.

“One of the best ways we can honor the sacrifice of our friends is to keep moving forward in the exploration of space,” he goes on to say.

Ceremonies to mark the commemoration dates will be held at 9 am EST (1400 GMT) on January 28, at the NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. This spaceport is the home of the shuttles.