Just before it disintegrated, space shuttle Columbia experienced an abnormal rise in temperature and wind resistance that forced the craft’s automatic pilot to make rapid changes to its flight path — possible evidence that some heat-protection tiles were missing or damaged, Nasa said.
As engineers pinpointed the exact satellite locations of debris, Nasa said on Sunday it had found remains from all seven of the astronauts who perished.
Engineers began assembling a grim puzzle from debris recovered in Texas and Louisiana, and disclosed computerized data showing that the unusual events before Saturday’s accident occurred on the left side of the shuttle — the same side hit by a piece of fuel-tank insulation during the launch 16 days earlier.
Shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore cautioned the data was preliminary but said the combination of events and data suggest that the thermal tiles that protect the shuttle from burning up during re-entry may have been damaged on January 16.
”We’ve got some more detective work. But we’re making progress inch by inch,” Dittemore said, adding engineers are trying to extract 32 seconds more of computerized data from the doomed spacecraft. Dittemore said earlier in the mission, Nasa had aggressively investigated the possible effects of the impact from the fuel tank’s foam insulation and concluded ”it did not represent a safety
concern.”
”As we gather more evidence, certainly the evidence may take us in another direction,” he said. – Sapa-AP