MER SSTB plaque

The circular high-gain antenna has a plaque attached to it that was also attached to Spirit. This plaque is a memorial to the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-107). The Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, as the rover team at JPL was finishing preparations of the rovers for delivery to Florida for launch. The engineers, mourning the loss of fellow space explorers, wanted to pay tribute to them. They affixed this plaque with the STS-107 mission patch and the names of the crew to Spirit, and the rover’s landing site was later designated as Columbia Memorial Station.