NASA: Shuttle Temperature Rose Suddenly

Yahoo News ^ | 2/2/03 | Paul Recer - AP

[NormsRevenge]

NASA: Shuttle Temperature Rose Suddenly

By PAUL RECER, AP Science Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -

NASA (news - web sites) officials said Sunday that space shuttle Columbia experienced a sudden and extreme rise in temperature on the fuselage moments before the craft broke apart.

AP Photo

NASA space shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore said the temperature rise — 60 degrees over five minutes in the mid-fuselage — was followed by an increased sign of drag that caused the shuttle's computerized flight control system to try to make an adjustment to the flight pattern.

Dittemore cautioned that the evidence was still preliminary, but that one of the possibilities was that there been damage or a loss of thermal tiles that protect the shuttle from burning up during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

"We are making progress," Dittemore said, adding that the combination of new engineering data and an observer who reported seeing debris from the shuttle while it was still passing over California may create "a path that may lead us to the cause."

The shuttle broke up shortly before landing Saturday, killing all seven astronauts. Most of its debris landed in eastern Texas and Louisiana.

Earlier Sunday, NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe named a former Navy admiral to oversee an independent review of the accident, and said investigators initially would focus on whether a broken-off piece of insulation from the big external fuel tank caused damage to the shuttle during liftoff Jan. 16 that ultimately doomed the flight 16 days later.

"It's one of the areas we're looking at first, early, to make sure that the investigative team is concentrating on that theory," O'Keefe said.

The insulation is believed to have struck a section of the shuttle's left side.

Dittemore said the engineering data showed a temperature rise in the left wheel well of the shuttle about seven minutes before communication was lost with the spacecraft. One minute later, there was an even more significant temperature rise in the middle to left side of the fuselage.

The drag on the left wing began a short while later, causing the shuttle's automated flight system to start to make adjustments.

"There may be some significance to the wheel well. We've got some more detective work," Dittemore said.

The manufacturer of the fuel tank disclosed Sunday that NASA used an older version of the tank, which the space agency began phasing out in 2000. NASA's preflight press information stated the shuttle was using one of the newer super-lightweight fuel tanks.

Harry Wadsworth, a spokesman for Lockheed, the tank maker, said most shuttle launches use the "super-lightweight" tank and the older version is no longer made. Wadsworth said he did not know if there was a difference in how insulation was installed on the two types of tanks.

Wadsworth said the tank used aboard the Columbia mission was manufactured in November 2000 and delivered to NASA the next month. Only one more of the older tanks is left, he said.

O'Keefe emphasized that the space agency was being careful not to lock onto any one theory too soon. He vowed to "leave absolutely no stone unturned."

For a second day, searchers scoured forests and rural areas over 500 square miles of East Texas and western Louisiana for bits of metal, ceramic tile, computer chips and insulation from the shattered spacecraft.

State and federal officials, treating the investigation like a multi-county crime scene, were protecting the debris until it can be catalogued, carefully collected and then trucked to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

The effort to reconstruct what is left of Columbia into a rough outline of the shuttle will be tedious and painstaking.

When a shuttle piece was located this weekend, searchers left it in place until a precise global position satellite reading could be taken. Each shuttle part is numbered; NASA officials say experts hope to trace the falling path of each recovered piece.

The goal is to establish a sequence of how parts were ripped off Columbia as it endured the intense heat and pressure of the high-speed re-entry into the atmosphere.

At least 20 engineers from United Space Alliance, a key NASA contractor for the shuttle program, were dispatched to Barksdale for what is expected to be a round-the-clock investigation.

Other experts, including metallurgists and forensic medicine specialists, are expected to join the investigation. Their focus will be on a microscopic examination of debris and remains that could elicit clues such as how hot the metal became, how it twisted and which parts flew off first.

In addition to NASA's investigation, O'Keefe named an independent panel to be headed by retired Navy admiral Harold W. Gehman Jr., who previously helped investigate the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole (news - web sites).

Gehman's panel will also examine the Columbia wreckage, and come to its own conclusions about what happened. O'Keefe described Gehman as "well-versed in understanding exactly how to look about the forensics in these cases and coming up with the causal effects of what could occur."

Joining Gehman on the commission are four other military officers and two federal aviation safety officials.

Officials used horses and four-wheel-drive vehicles to find and recover the shuttle pieces. Divers were being called in to search the floor of Toledo Bend Reservoir, on the Texas-Louisiana line, for a car-sized piece seen slamming into the water.

Some body parts from the seven-member astronaut crew have been recovered and are being sent to a military morgue in Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

Columbia came apart 200,000 feet over Texas while it was streaking at more than 12,000 miles an hour toward the Kennedy Space Center (news - web sites). A long vapor trail across the sky marked the rain of debris.

[6ppc]

There was a thread on this yesterday. Several of us notice it in the video and one freeper snagged a clip and posted a link to it. Now all of the news channels are showing the same video. On the previous thread another freeper claims it is a reflection of the aperature in a Sony video camera and he posted a pic of the aperature in question. Not sure which it is, but it may not be the shuttle...or it may indeed be the shuttle.

Shuttle Pic--SIDE VIEW!

Link to video clip

[wcbtinman]

"The ultimate question is why did the ship begin to roll?"

Those in govt, and without, who were quick to dismiss terrorism as a cause of this tragedy should think about the possibility of someone interferring with the telemetry and data links to the shuttle.

A long time ago I had a discussion with a gentleman who was involved in the early shuttle computer systems and telemetry setups. He indicated that there were ways to purposely interfere with data transmissions just like someone can hack a computer over the internet. Not very easy to do, but absolutely possible. I'm trying to find this guy so that I can see if he still feels this way.

With so many people and so many firms involved with various aspects of the computer systems on the shuttle, it would not entirely surprise me if it is found that the shuttle computer software, and/or the data links were compromised.

The angle of attack and direction are very critical for re-entry into the atmosphere, and it would only take a momentary glitch to cause the catastrophe seen in Columbia.

[One Sided Media]

Because of the concern about the incident at the launch involving the material that fell off of the structure between the shuttle and the main booster, had there been a great deal of damage I think the camera's around the launch pad would have picked up extensive damage on the surface beneath the wings. You would have to lose alot of tiles to increase the drag that is being talked about during the press conference.

To instigate the amount of force needed to counter rotate the shuttle to the degree that had to occur to bring the inertial controls significantly online as they were reporting today would take more then a few tiles falling off. So if I am right that the tiles are a red herring, I have to envision a situation where there is a gradual loss of control. If the shuttle slowly began dipping the left wing toward the earth with the inertial control system trying to counter it, I envision a slow see-sawing of the left wing dipping down and then partially, but not completely, correcting the attitude, with the resulting heat measurements over the left wing surface and upper left side of the fuselage rising as it is exposed more and more to the atmosphere. I don't know where the telemetry electronics and antenna are located, but it wouldn't surprise me if if was housed somewhere near the top of the fuselage and maybe even on the left hand side.

I believe the rise in temperatures after the loss of the telemetry dramatically increased, with the explosion that has been seen in the video all day long being the result.

I don't know how the elevon control structure works but a slow degredation of the attitude is consistent with the increasing temperature, before they it became critical, which occurred after the telemetry was lost.

[NELSON111]

You guys need to understand something. Even IF the foam was a precipitating factor...they did not see it until the next day when they looked at the tapes...frame by frame. You cannot see it unless you slow it down...something you cannot do "live". Therefore...all the talk about abort and RTB are meaningless in this instance because you cannot abort and RTB when you are already in orbit...which is where they were when they saw the foam impact.

[BlueOneGolf]

Your arguments are logical and I agree with them. however, I was underthe impression there were two shuttle launch pads. Pad 39a and 39b. Seems I remember a photo one time of two shuttles prepping for launch a few weeks apart and on seperate launch pads. I may be wrong though.

[No Truce With Kings]

"I dont recall how much burn time they had left, but looking at the videos it seems they had a lot of fuel left after the explosion."

The SRBs burn for 127 second. The event occured at 73 seconds. Actually, they had seen burn-throughs on earlier flight -- pointed outwards. I had a friend who did booster work, and ran some sims that showed that if the Challenger leak had been on the other side, the bird would have survived. Of course, I pointed out (a) it didn't and (b) if it had the problem would likely have been ignored until some time when it did. (He agreed on both counts.) Probably would have happened in 1986 as there were 10-12 missions scheduled.

My real point is that it takes a combination of small problems merging together to create a disaster. Claiming that the precipitating factor (eg SRB burn-through) was the whole enchilada is too confining.

[6ppc]

We used to call this "Pinwheel Mode" or "Pinwheel Re-entry"

I visualized it in my mind when he asked the question...then you came up with the "official" terminology!

[_Jim]

"A product of dubious internet interpretation spurred on by a neophyte crowd who has never 'stopped down' or focused a real lens, changed a roll of film or performed any type of real photography ..."

And you can quote me.

[Resolute]

This is the first time I have read mentioned of "open source" contribution to space shuttle flight software, in this context. If I understand your assertion, some untested and / or faulty code could have become part of the flight build. Yikes. Have you any more details at this time? (Such as links?) Thanks.

[No Truce With Kings]

"Also, if you get the flight people to talk off the record about RTLS, TAL, etc., they will tell you that being able to accomplish these flight senarios is iffy at best, especially RTLS.

An ATO (Abort To Orbit)is less iffy, but normally would occur only because of early cut-off of one or more SSME's"

If you get them to talk off the record, their eyes glaze over on an RTLS, as there are singularities in the onboard flight control systems. They would almost always press to a TAL rather than do an RTLS. I don't think they could have called a TAL on this one -- because they got the info after MECO.

Even an ATO creates heating on the same order as a nominal entry. Maybe they could have survived an AOA. Don't know,

[No Truce With Kings]

"Seems I remember a photo one time of two shuttles prepping for launch a few weeks apart and on seperate launch pads. I may be wrong though."

One is shut down for repairs. Salt air ate the gears.

[6ppc]

the problem occurred at T+80, and was probably noted *after* MECO.

Actually they didn't notice it until the next day when they were reviewing the launch films...MECO + 24 hours or so.

[Johnny Crab]

That(cannot be true) or he's uttering "inoperative statements". He should be asked(under oath/lie detector/truth serum) if the telescope-from-earth underside inspection showed the damage he "seems to hope" they won't find....since "EXPERTS" said "no problem"....

The more this "unfolds", the more it starts to seem like another Challenger where "management ignored ENGINEERING warnings".....

[HighWheeler]

I never stated, implied, or inferred that any video was required to make the decision for RTLS.

I stated a method to prevent damage in the first place by using LE covers, and/or using accelerometer data to detect a significant impact by debris. Neither is perfect, nothing is. But I did not even refer to the video as the determining factor to execute a RTLS.

[No Truce With Kings]

"Actually they didn't notice it until the next day when they were reviewing the launch films...MECO + 24 hours or so."

Well, that is after MECO. (Yours is the first confirm I had of that.) But it doesn't really change things. The entry would have been the same if they had found it at MECO +1 hr or MECO +10 days. Once the mains stopped they were doomed. At least they got to enjoy the flight.

[NormsRevenge]

Im listening to Drudge, watching Dr. Strangelove ,, But that;s not gonna stop me from asking ;-)

Anyone know how fast the shuttle was going 80 seconds after launch? Some folks are having a problem believing it could have damaged anything, I mean it was foam , right?

[Moonman62]

5. They did not have enough delta-vee to reach the ISS. The orbits were too different.

But what if you also add the delta-vee available to the ISS? I know there were other obstacles, but what if they started preparing a rescue the day after launch?

[6ppc]

Ok...so which do you think it is? Artifact or shuttle? I can't really tell what you think from your reply. I'm asking cause I don't have the expertise and want to know.

[One Sided Media]

There is always a possibility of some type of heretofore unknown sabotage.

My sense though, and this assumes that NASA is not being disingenuous, is that their telemetry did not show a sudden breakdown in control, which is what I would assume would occur if there had been interference from an external source. It seems as if control was gradually being lost, as if the inertial control system's attempt to correct the left wing from dipping slipped away. If I am right, I'm willing to bet that the readings that NASA reports over the next few news conferences will describe a slow and smooth rolling over of the shuttle with the temperature spikes growing in intensity along the top of the wing structure and fuselage. NASA should be able to correlate the temperature of the top of the shuttle to where the shuttle is in the videos and identify the point where the heat build up breaches the structure's ability to withstand it, resulting in the explosion.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

My guess is that much more attention will be given to launch debris if damage during take off turns out to be a contributing factor to this disaster. This could be accomplished through additional, external cameras and through more extensive use of surface sensors.