Tank, tiles focus of Columbia investigation
Posted: Tue, Feb 4, 2003, 8:10 AM ET (1310 GMT)
NASA investigators said Monday they are working on the assumption that the shuttle's external tank is the root source of the problems that caused the loss of the space shuttle Columbia Saturday. Last week shuttle officials has discounted the possibility that a piece of foam insulation, possibly mixed with ice, that fell off the external tank during launch and struck the left wing could have seriously damaged the tiles. Shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore said Monday that they were redoing that analysis on the basis of speculation that the tiles on the left wing suffered come kind of damage that led to the failure. NASA released new evidence Monday that showed the first signs of problems took place a minute earlier than previously reported, when three left main gear break line temperature sensors recorded an unusual increase at 8:52 am EST (1352 GMT) Saturday. However, officials cautioned that the size of the increase seen around the left wheel well — over 30 degrees Celsius — were not enough to indicate that there had been some kind of burn-through of the landing gear door, although it could indicate a similar burn-through elsewhere in the wing. The investigation is continuing around the clock as searchers find more debris from Columbia, including a large section of the nose of the orbiter found in a 1.5-meter crater late Monday. The work will take a break Tuesday afternoon for a memorial service at the Johnson Space Center, with President Bush in attendance.
NASA investigators said Monday they are working on the assumption that the shuttle's external tank is the root source of the problems that caused the loss of the space shuttle Columbia Saturday. Last week shuttle officials has discounted the possibility that a piece of foam insulation, possibly mixed with ice, that fell off the external tank during launch and struck the left wing could have seriously damaged the tiles. Shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore said Monday that they were redoing that analysis on the basis of speculation that the tiles on the left wing suffered come kind of damage that led to the failure. NASA released new evidence Monday that showed the first signs of problems took place a minute earlier than previously reported, when three left main gear break line temperature sensors recorded an unusual increase at 8:52 am EST (1352 GMT) Saturday. However, officials cautioned that the size of the increase seen around the left wheel well — over 30 degrees Celsius — were not enough to indicate that there had been some kind of burn-through of the landing gear door, although it could indicate a similar burn-through elsewhere in the wing. The investigation is continuing around the clock as searchers find more debris from Columbia, including a large section of the nose of the orbiter found in a 1.5-meter crater late Monday. The work will take a break Tuesday afternoon for a memorial service at the Johnson Space Center, with President Bush in attendance.
Related Links:
| <<previous article | next article>> |
|
news in brief
|
|
Apex becomes billion-dollar company with $200 million Series D round
Posted: Sun, Sep 14 4:09 AM ET (0809 GMT) |
|
news links
|
|
Monday, September 15
Elon Musk's Starlink reports service outage, thousands of users affected
Reuters — 1:23 am ET (0523 GMT) What does the loss of U.S. Space Command mean to Colorado Springs?
Denver Post — 1:21 am ET (0521 GMT) SpaceX Launches Northrop Grumman Cargo Ship To ISS
Aviation Week — 1:18 am ET (0518 GMT) SpaceX launches Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral on Sunday
WESH-TV Orlando — 1:18 am ET (0518 GMT) Apollo 13 made Jim Lovell a legend generations after the space race
The Hill — 1:09 am ET (0509 GMT) |
