From BBC
The American space agency Nasa says it lost communication with the space shuttle Columbia about 15 minutes before it was due to land at the Kennedy space centre.
There were seven crew members aboard the shuttle - six Americans and the first Israeli in space.
It was not immediately clear what had happened to the shuttle, but there are reports of debris falling to the ground.
Relatives of the astronauts who were awaiting the shuttle's arrival were taken away from mission control.
The shuttle's landing was overdue. It had been scheduled to arrive at the Florida space center at 0916 (1416 GMT).
Television pictures showed a vapour trail from the craft as it flew over the Texas city of Dallas.
It then appeared to disintegrate into several separate vapour trails.
Nasa has declared an emergency and search and rescue teams have been mobilised.
According to Nasa, the shuttle was about 200,000 feet up and travelling at 12,500 (20,000 kph) mph when contact was lost.
Although Nasa did not say what had happened to the shuttle, it warned that any debris found in the area should be avoided and could be hazardous.
In 42 years of human space flight, Nasa has never lost a space crew during landing.
There seems to be no confirmation of falling debris yet, but NASA has issued a caution about not to approach any if found. Could be just a precaution.
The only other significant things about tis mission was the Israeli astronaut- which caused extre security to be present due to vague fears of terrorist action- and that a piece of insulation fell off the shuttle as it took off. That was meant to be insignificant.
Worrying.
Prior to burnout from orbit there was indications of damage to some heat shield tiles. It was inspected from the inside of the shuttle, but no EVA was performed.
The go/no go was called and a go was confirmed.
Shuttle contact was lost over Texas as the shuttle was in excess of 200,000 feet up and travelling at mach 25!!!
OMG!
I saw what happened with my own eyes.
They have been talking with people in the suburbs who actually heard an enormous sonic boom, I didn't hear anything, but it looked absolutely fine, I've seen about 7 shuttle landings, most of them at night, they always flyover Dallas.
About 20 seconds after first spotting it, I could see that is was breaking up. Its hard to tell on the videos that they have been showing on TV, but in person, I could tell that it was drastically slowing down as it broke up.
Really sad. Kind of in shock right now.
On TV they have been telling people not to touch any debris.
They belive the wereckage is in East Texas.
I woke up early just to see it. 🙁