Air Force imagery confirms Columbia wing damaged (with picture)

Space Flght Now ^ | 7 Feb 03 | CRAIG COVAULT

[El Gato]

The lower edge of the shuttle, from the nose to the tip of the wing, should be a SMOOTH curve. Those bumps represent major damage

No, they look more like a resolution effect. Only up near the wing root, but not quite up to it, does anything look amiss. Plus there seems to be a streak trailing behind the shuttle that lines up with that same location.

[brityank]

You mirrored the upper/Right side; the Left wing is the lower side in the NASA photo.

[Riley]

THAT is the picture that all this fuss has been about???

No, this isn't the picture that the astronomer in San Francisco shot- this is from an Air Force ground based tracking facility, as per the article.

Given the circumstances under which it was taken, it isn't too bad, and it does tell us things.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Bang!

Telemetry and photographic analysis indicate the breakup of the historic orbiter took place as she slowed from Mach 20-to-18 across California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico with the loss of structural integrity 205,000 ft. over north central Texas where most of the debris fell.

[freepersup]

Numerous eyewitnesses from Ca. to Tx. have captured images and first hand accounts of the shuttle's passage overhead, and all of them have at least one thing in common, a smoke trail and or numerous smoke trails and debris trails (shuttle material shedding) as part of their reports.

Does that exclude a thruster firing ? No-

But this condition can be substantiated from numerous sources. In other words- a known condition. Heat/smoke/debris contrail/s.

Where was the picture, taken that is a Fox video capture (zoom) of the shuttle hurtling sideways across the sky ? Texas ?

[FreedomCalls]

I understand what your saying, but why no color information? This looks like 8 bit grayscale to me. Also the pixel resolution looks very low.

It's a tracking camera. No color information is needed. It's an extreme enlargement of a small portion of a digital photo. That's why the pixelation is so extreme.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

I'll buy that.

[Mo1]

it isn't too bad, and it does tell us things.

Well tell us .. cause I don't have the slightest idea

[Chad Fairbanks]

"What damage???"

[John W]

From MSNBC at http://www.msnbc.com/news/867336.asp

However, the photograph displayed Friday — a fuzzy, bat wing-shaped silhouette — was of significantly lower resolution than the version NASA itself was studying, which was reviewed by NBC News. The Starfire telescope can recognize features as small as 1 foot long from 600 miles away, base officials said.
The original image, an infrared view taken about a minute and 45 seconds before contact was lost with the shuttle at 8:59:22 a.m. ET Saturday, reveals a jagged edge on the front of the left wing, which sources told NBC News indicated severe damage.

[Mo1]

Oh I'm sure they'll show up soon enough

[lizma]

And what is the first thing that comes to your mind?

[tall_tex]

I saw a better immage of a shuttle craft formed by a highschool band on Fox Cable News about a half hour ago, I thought I saw horendous damage to the left wing there too. But I could be wrong.

[Joe Hadenuf]

That Kalifornia astronomer that won't release his pics of the shuttle makes me want to jack-slap him.

Well you may get dropped kicked back into Utaw, as I believe he turned then into NASA instead of running to the networks like a media hound. I thinks this possibly makes him even more credible.

[mikenola]

bump for informative slides

[Riley]

From the article:

According to sources close to the investigation, the images, under analysis at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, show a jagged edge on the left inboard wing structure near where the wing begins to intersect the fuselage. They also show the orbiter's right aft yaw thrusters firing, trying to correct the vehicle's attitude that was being adversely affected by the left wing damage. Columbia's fuselage and right wing appear normal. Unlike the damaged and jagged left wing section, the right wing appears smooth along its entire length. The imagery is consistent with telemetry.

Also consider how far out the were when this was shot. Continuing...

as the crippled orbiter flew overhead about 60 sec. before the vehicle broke up over Texas

Sixty seconds from Texas at 12K MPH, is what- over California? Over the Pacific?
It also lends a lot of weight to the notion that it was in fact a wing problem, rather than some as yet unspecified event, per some of the speculation.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Good shot.

[tall_tex]

Love it, we do have a MrMaGoo screen name here on FR. Love his posts. Tom

[Lady Jag]

Left is symmetrical pic, right is their pic:

[IronJack]

How did damage to the left wing cause right-side drag?

An aircraft doesn't "roll" left or right. It "yaws." "Roll" indicates a rotational motion around the longitudinal axis. Was Columbia rolling or yawing at 7:59 when the thrusters fired? A roll would be a much harder aerodynamic event to counteract, and a much more destabilizing one in such a cumbersome vehicle, I would think. However, a yaw is more consistent with asymmetric damage to a flight surface, where said damage would impart adverse drag.

But to the degree the stubby wings of the shuttle are lifting surfaces, damage to the left leading edge could have diminished that wing's lift, causing both yaw and roll.

This timeline, while fascinating, simply tells the "what," not the "why."