spacetoday.net: Investigators: shuttle wing punctured

Posted: Fri, Feb 14, 2003, 8:54 AM ET (1354 GMT)
STS-107 patch (NASA)

An independent panel investigating the loss of the space shuttle Columbia announced Thursday that it believes a puncture somewhere in the left wing of the orbiter allowed hot plasma to enter, leading to the accident. In a statement forwarded to the public by NASA, the Accident Investigation Board (AIB) said that temperatures recorded in the left wheel well of Columbia during reentry requires the presence of hot plasma there. While investigators had been working on the assumption that one or more tiles were missing from the orbiter during reentry, they said that the temperatures could not be explained simply by heat conducted through the orbiter's aluminum structure; instead, the structure itself must have been punctured somewhere, allowing the plasma to enter. Some engineers speculate that the heat could have caused the tires of the left wing landing gear to explode, causing major damage. What caused that puncture remains a mystery. NASA also released a revised accident timeline on Thursday that provided new details about the accident, showing that the first signs of problems took place in the early stages of reentry, when the shuttle was still off the coast of California, earlier than previously reported.