spacetoday.net: Tank, tiles focus of Columbia investigation

Posted: Tue, Feb 4, 2003, 7:10 AM ET (1210 GMT)
STS-107 patch (NASA)

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.