This is from Mr. Dittemore's most recent remarks. Maybe as time passes we are getting more information.
At 8:53 a.m. EST, he said, as Columbia was sailing high above California on its way to landing at the Kennedy Space Center, "four left-hand elevon (wing flap) hydraulic return line temperature measurements dropped off scale. The left brake line, (landing gear) strut actuator and uplock actuator temperature measurements rose significantly, 20 to 30 degrees in five minutes. This is significant in that these measurements were located in the left wheel well. This was the first occurance of a significant thermal event.
"It's also important to us that we understand and have found out that the elevon temperature measurements that I talked about (Saturday) that dropped off scale low are routed adjacent to the wheel well area.
"At 8:54, we were over eastern California and western Nevada. At this time, the mid fuselage left bondline temperature sensor showed an unusual temperature rise," Dittemore said. "We're talking about a temperature on the left side of the vehicle above the wing. The temperature rose 60 degrees over five minutes whereas on the right-hand side of the vehicle, in the same location but opposite on the right-hand side, showed a nominal 15-degree rise over five minutes.
"Another interesting piece of information, that even though the mid fuselage bondline temp showed a 60-degree rise in five minutes, just inside that wall, in the payload bay, our cryo tanks were nominal. So it didn't look like there was any increase in temperature in the payload bay as far as we are able to discern today. "At 8:58 a.m. over New Mexico, the roll trim in the elevons started to increase, indicating we had an increase in drag on the left side of the vehicle," Dittemore said. "Does this mean something to us? We're not sure. It could be indicative of rough tile, it could be indicative perhaps of missing tile. We're not sure. We do know it's indicative there was an increase in drag on the left side of the vehicle. "At this time, we also lost the left main landing gear tire pressure and wheel temperature measurements. We're fairly confident that this loss of information was measurement related and not loss of the tires themselves because the measurements were staggered in their loss. If we'd have lost a tire, we believe we would have lost all the measurements at the same time. That didn't occur.
"At 8:59 a.m. we were over west Texas. Again we see an increase in the roll trim as indicated by elevon motion, indicating the vehicle was reacting to an increased drag on the left-hand side. The flight control system was countering that drag by trying to command the vehicle to roll to the right-hand side. ... Soon after, we had loss of signal."