NEW YORK (AP) — An astronaut is donating an American flag that traveled aboard the NASA space shuttle Atlantis to New York City in honor of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Michael J. Massimino (ma-sih-MEE’-noh), of Franklin Square, N.Y., is scheduled to present the flag at a ceremony Thursday at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in lower Manhattan.
The 9/11 victims included 343 city fire department members. Massimino’s father was a chief inspector in the department, but wasn’t among the victims.
The flag traveled 5.3 million miles aboard the Atlantis during the final mission to perform repairs on the Hubble Space Telescope in May.
