Astronomer saw shuttle apparently in trouble over California

San Diego Union Tribune ^ | 02/01/03 | John Antczak

[socal_parrot]

By John Antczak
ASSOCIATED PRESS

12:03 a.m., February 1, 2003

LOS ANGELES – Space shuttle Columbia appeared to begin trailing fiery debris as it passed over Eastern California early Saturday, well before its destruction over Texas, according to a California Institute of Technology astronomer who witnessed its fiery transit.

Anthony Beasley observed the shuttle's re-entry from outside his home in Bishop, Calif., near Caltech's Owens Valley Radio Observatory, where he is project manager of the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy.

"As it tracked from west to east over the Owens Valley it was leaving a bright trail. As it actually moved over the valley there were a couple of flashes. ... Then we could see there were things clearly trailing the orbiter subsequent to that," Beasley said.

Beasley said he, his wife, Anne, and mother-in-law, Anne Finley, had gone outside in the early morning darkness to watch the re-entry from the small town 225 miles north of Los Angeles. He said the sky was clear and dark, and the shuttle was immediately visible when it cleared the Sierra Nevada peaks to the west of Bishop.

He said he had never witnessed a shuttle re-entry before and is not an authority on shuttles, but he immediately thought Columbia was having problems.

"In particular, there was one very clear event where there was a piece that backed off the orbiter. ... It was giving off its own light, then it slowly fell from visibility," he said.

Beasley said he thought the shuttle might be losing some of the heat-resistant tiles that protect it during the fiery re-entry. He said he did not learn of the shuttle's destruction until he went to the observatory and compared notes with two news photographers who had arranged to photograph the re-entry through a telescope.

Beasley said they compared notes and all agreed they had seen what he termed "the bright event, the third event."

"The analogy, I think, is it looked like the shuttle dropped a flare," he said.

He described the scene again: "Pretty soon after we started to see it track there were brief flashes of light. It would sort of flash a little bit and there was an indication of material trailing the orbiter. They would sort of disappear from view. ... That happened two or three times. One of these was very bright. It was a very clear thing. It separated itself from where the orbiter is. It sort of fell behind in the trail and it was burning itself. It was hot itself ... and then the orbiter continued heading toward Texas."

[unspun]

I think that image may be what I saw on TV, when it seemed to me that the cameraman (tough, women's libbers) lost focus and his camera was playing games with the light. I thought to myself 'Hmmm, self... that looks like a cloudy image or two that I've seen in times past, that some have claimed to be UFO's.'

KnowwhatImean?

[Fred Mertz]

Todd will change his one a whim if he thinks it will get him attention.

You think he does what he does for attention? You are very wrong on that.

[Mo1]

Sorry Todd but you are over the top on that one

[sissyjane]

From what I heard (from a former astronaut) the crew can't see out the windows very well if at all during entry

[unspun]

All-right.

I want you two to take a time out. Go to your rooms.

[Howlin]

LOL.....you mean you think it's his calling? Please.

[TLBSHOW]

Its out and will have to be dealt with. Even fox has reported it. I always say deal with things when they come your way good or bad!

Fred says Did you mean Patriot?

At the very least a Liberal Basher! Who now finds he has to fight those on the same side too! That is sad.

[Howlin]

Well, after reading those links in 149, I think I do. Sort of.

[Howlin]

Who now finds he has to fight those on the same side too!

You ARE the "other side."

[Fred Mertz]

That letter must be dealt with, hard as it may or may not be.

I'm sure they're jumping through hoops to work up a response to that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention...anyway.

[Jael]

Howlin, I thought this might interest you. It's kind of a time line of the sensors going out and such like. They did start to go out before Columbia broke up.

Another sad but true issue is the foam breaking off. I will find the links for you tomorrow, but in a nutshell, NASA changed the foam by taking out the Freon. They knew it had been breaking off, because it did in two out of the last three missions. It was being investigated, but the investigation was not complete before Columbia started her final, fatal flight.

Columbia break-up appears to start with left wing
BY STEVEN YOUNG
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: 0230 GMT, February 2, 2003

The scene in mission control as contact with the shuttle is lost. Photo: Spaceflight Now/NASA TV.

In the final minutes of shuttle Columbia's doomed reentry, flight controllers began to see indications of a major problem in the area of the shuttle's left wing, NASA officials said on Saturday in their first detailed news briefing since the tragedy.

Just prior to the shuttle's break-up, a series of sensors in the wing failed one by one, as though their wires had been cut, shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore said.

"I have to caution you that we cannot yet say what caused the loss of Columbia," he said. "It's still very early in our investigation and its going to take us some time to work through the evidence, the anaylsis and clearly understand what the cause was."

Sensors recording temperatures in the hydraulic systems on the inboard and outboard elevons were the first to go offline at about 8:53 a.m. EST (1353 GMT), chief flight director Milt Heflin said. About three minutes later, increased temperatures were noted in the compartment housing the left main landing gear.

Around 8:58 a.m. EST (1358 GMT) three bondline temperature sensors in the left wing, embedded in the structure of the vehicle, suddenly stopped working. Then at around 8:59 a.m. EST (1359 GMT), the temperature and pressure sensors for both tires on the left main landing gear dropped offline. A total of eight measurements were lost.

Throughout this time the shuttle continued to fly as planned, streaking through the upper atmosphere at just over 18 times the speed of sound.

Chief flight director Milt Heflin explains the sequence of events. Photo: Spaceflight Now/NASA TV.

"We saw nothing else to indicate any difficulty at all," Heflin said.

The loss of one of these final measurements did trigger a warning in the cockpit, providing the crew with perhaps their first clue something was going very wrong.

"The measurement was no longer reading -- it was not giving an indication. It's as if someone just cut the wire," Dittemore said.

The astronauts were acknowledging this alarm when voice communications with the shuttle abruptly lost. The orbiter was at an altitude of 207,135 feet.

"During this time we lost the data and that's when we clearly began to know that we had a bad day," Heflin said.

The orbiter's left wing had been struck by a piece of foam that broke away from the fuel tank during shuttle's climb to orbit on January 16. NASA engineers had determined that the impact had not caused any serious damage.

Shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore discusses the launch incident. Photo: Spaceflight Now/NASA TV.

In the wake of Saturday's tragedy, Dittemore said "we can't discount that there might be a connection, but we have to caution you and ourselves that we can't rush to judgement on it. There are a lot of things in this business that look like the smoking gun but turn out not even to be close."

The foam was seen breaking free from the bi-pod area where the orbiter nose attaches to the tank. The event is marked by a white puff between the wing and tank and is visible in launch video.

Dittemore said foam was also shed from the same area of the external tank on STS-112 -- two flights ago in October. None of the foam appeared to break loose during a November mission.

Prior to Saturday's tragedy, a review was being conducted to understand why two of the last three missions had suffered from the problem. The inquiry was to have been completed before the next shuttle was cleared for flight.

Recent updates

SATURDAY
Break-up appears to have started with left wing

NASA-issued summary report on Saturday's disaster

Statement by NASA Administrator O'Keefe

President Bush makes address on shuttle tragedy

Space shuttle Columbia's seven-member crew

Shuttle debris cloud visible in weather radar

INDEX | BREAKING NEWS | LAUNCH SCHEDULE
MISSION REPORT | FEATURES | ASTRONOMY NOW | STORE
ADVERTISE

© 2003 Pole Star Publications Ltd

[TLBSHOW]

you mean you think it's his calling

Well if you put it that way,,,yes!

[Howlin]

Read the post above this one!

[CWOJackson]

About twenty minutes after the destruction my wife commented that it wouldn't be long before they were crawling out of the woodwork trying to us this as another excuse to attack the President.

I argued that it would take a while because no one could be sick enough to pull such BS while the remains are still scattered across the landscape. Was I ever wrong...they're gathering quicker then vultures.

[unspun]

Fm. Fox story mentioning Nelson:
"In Hemphill, near the Louisiana state line, hospital employee Mike Gibbs reported finding..."

Hemphill, eh? Must be where some of our Libertarian posters live.

[Howlin]

I think you think it's your life......and that's kind of sad, IMO.

[Howlin]

And it's not "them." It's one who claims to be one of us.

[CWOJackson]

You mean kind of like the libertarian peace-niks?

[TLBSHOW]

Looks like someone is going to answer for allowing this mission to proceed.

[MississippiMan]

I think the failures of the left in board and left out board temperature sensors were significant, don't you?

Yeah, I sure have my doubts that by coincidence those sensors failed and then catastrophic airframe failure followed. Again, sheer conjecture on my part, but I have a hunch that when all is said and done we're gonna find out the tiles were the core problem, perhaps related to the incident during launch. I was also shocked to see in that Columbia photo that got posted in several threads, just how dilapidated this shuttle looked. Yes, I do know airworthiness and appearance are not necessarily related, but the thermal tiles in that photo looked like a patchwork quilt that had been mended many, many times.

MM