Investigators: Shuttle's Exterior Pierced During Fiery Descent

Associated Press ^ | Feb 13, 2003 | Ted Bridis Associated Press Writer

[OutSpot]

WASHINGTON (AP) - The space shuttle's skin almost was certainly pierced, allowing superheated air inside the left wing and possibly the wheel compartment during Columbia's fiery descent through Earth's atmosphere, investigators said Thursday.

In its first significant determination, the accident investigation board announced that heat damage from a missing tile would not be sufficient to cause unusual temperature increases inside Columbia minutes before it disintegrated. Sensors detected an unusual heat buildup of about 30 degrees inside the wheel well before the accident.

The board determined those increases were caused by the presence inside Columbia of plasma, or superheated air, with a temperature of roughly 2,000 degrees. It said investigators were studying where a breach might have occurred to allow plasma to seep inside the wheel compartment or elsewhere in Columbia's left wing.

The announcement focused renewed attention on possible catastrophic failures inside the wheel compartment that may have attributed to the Feb. 1 breakup that killed seven astronauts.

Officials are not sure where a hole might have opened in Columbia's skin, NASA spokesman James Hartsfield said. But he said the leading edge or elsewhere on the left wing, the fuselage or the left landing gear door were prime candidates.

"Any of those could be potential causes for the temperature change we saw," Hartsfield said. "They do not and have not pinpointed any general location as to where that plasma flow would have to originate."

The board dismissed suggestions Columbia's left landing gear was improperly lowered as it raced through Earth's atmosphere at more than 12,000 miles per hour. NASA disclosed earlier Thursday that a sensor indicated the gear was down just 26 seconds before Columbia's destruction.

If Columbia's gear was lowered at that speed - and in those searing temperatures as the shuttle descended over Texas from about 40 miles up - the heat and rushing air would have sheared off Columbia's tires and led quickly to the spacecraft's tumbling destruction, experts said.

Officials said they were confident that unusual sensor reading was wrong. Tires are supposed to remain raised until the shuttle is about 200 feet over the runway and flying 345 miles per hour.

Two other sensors in the same wheel compartment indicated the gear was still properly raised, they said.

While Columbia's piloting computers began almost simultaneously firing thrusters struggling to keep wings level, officials said a mysterious disruption in the air flowing near the left wing was not serious enough to suggest the shuttle's gear might be down.

The investigating board concluded that its research "does not support the scenario of an early deployment of the left gear."

NASA also confirmed that searchers near Hemphill, Texas, about 140 miles northeast of Houston, recovered what is believed to be one of Columbia's radial tires. A spokesman was not immediately sure which of the shuttle's six tires was found.

The tire was blackened and sustained a massive split across its tread, but it was impossible to know whether the tire was damaged aboard Columbia or when it struck the ground.

The board's announcement came one day after NASA released e-mails showing midlevel safety engineers in Virginia and Houston considered the risks of tires bursting inside Columbia's belly from heat damage.

Robert H. Daugherty, responding to an inquiry from Johnson Space Center, cautioned in one of those e-mails that damage to insulating tiles near the landing gear door could cause one or more tires inside to rupture, perhaps ending with "catastrophic" failures that would place the seven astronauts "in a world of hurt."

Ret. Admiral Harold Gehman, who heads the panel investigating the Columbia accident, called Daugherty's concerns "one of the many, many interesting leads that we have."

AP-ES-02-13-03 1819EST

[OutSpot]

Slowly but surely we getting down to the facts.

Cheers to fellow Freepers who already suspected lots of the info contained in the article.

[LibKill]

I would like to see a better space vehicle built. With all the silly stuff that my tax dollars are wasted on, I would consider this to be a better use of said tax dollars.

It can be done. UNLEASH THE ENGINEERS!

[KellyAdmirer]

So just the wrong tiles over the wheel well get hit by the foam and damaged, causing the tire inside to overheat just enough to explode, forcing open the landing gear doors just enough to disrupt the air flow past the wing and get torn off, exposing the entire inside of the wheel well to more extreme heat, bursting the other tires which causes other tiles to fly off, which heats up the aluminum skin to the point of no return. ?

[dtel]

If foam had corrupted the skin of the craft early in flight, sensors would have failed well before re-entry.
The tin-foilers, cannot accept this.
Something happened on re-entry that was catastrophic, what that was, is yet undetermined.
Let us wait for a few more facts.

[elbucko]

I would like to see a better space vehicle built.

So would I. The general design may be appropriate to present and future missions but the specific design and its hardware is getting old and obsolete. Our space program(s) are one expenditure of taxpayers funds that I wholeheartedly approve and I have no connection with the space program at all.

[dtel]

The Shuttle was designed in the late 60's, early 70's, it is a Flying Camel.
It was and is a horse designed by a commitee.
It was re-engineered to haul seven different people of diffenrent ethnic persuasions into space.
It was re-engineered, so as to be so simple to fly that they could even launch school teachers, professors, et al., into space.
PC' ism at its finest.
Design craft mission specific, scrap the teachers and let's explore space.
Otherwise can it.

[Bob Mc]

And is currently being maintained and operated by people prefentially chosen based on their contribution to the "diversity" of the group, not by who is the most qualified.

[Falcon4.0]

I agree.

However the Poverty Pimps want ALL of the money, for thier Poverty Pimping, and unless everyone can go into space nobody should go into space.

[Thud]

ping

[neuron2]

If foam had corrupted the skin of the craft early in flight, sensors would have failed well before re-entry.

Please elaborate upon and cite your authority for this assertion. Thank you.

[dtel]

Well, let's see.
We're gonna run 17,00 MPH through outer space.
Maybe if you have ever stuck your hand out the window at 60+ MPH, you will notice the wind wantss to rip it off.
The same effect works in space.
If the wing was corrupted by the foam, it would have come apart during the sixteen days they were in space.
Was NASa concerned about foam damage?
Yes, indeed.
They admitted right away they were trying to bring it home as SAFELY as possible.
Did the foam pierce the skin?
Not by the evidence found so far.

[Ole Okie]

Maybe if you have ever stuck your hand out the window at 60+ MPH, you will notice the wind wantss to rip it off. The same effect works in space.

If the wing was corrupted by the foam, it would have come apart during the sixteen days they were in space.

You've got to be joking.

Q. How do the astronauts do space walks at 17,000 miles per hour?

A. No atmosphere at orbit altitude. No air. No wind. QED.

[dtel]

Dude, I am not a space engineer.
But anytime you are subjecting a surface to that kind of speed and force, it will come apart like a jigsaw puzzle if corrupted.
The rockets were still attached when the foam hit, they were not in orbit, and still had a lot of stress to go thru to get in orbit.
They still had to deorbit, more stress on the wing and tiles.
It would have come apart beforehand, if damaged early in flight.
IMHO.

[X-FID]

If foam had corrupted the skin of the craft early in flight, sensors would have failed well before re-entry. The tin-foilers, cannot accept this.

What kind of sensors? I doubt the temperature sensors would fail on take-off because it ain't going fast enough to generate the heat (unless there's a fire).

Thermocouple circuits for obvious reasons are designed for an off-scale reading when they are destroyed or disconnected, that didn't happen during the entire mission until the re-entry, that we know of.

If you mean another another type of sensor that can detect tile damage, I would be interested to know about that, otherwise the debris smashing into the port wing is what I would be looking at closely as well as every other possibility.

So call me a tin-foiler if you like.

[dtel]

If the foam had PUNCTURED the wing, not knocked off a few tiles, which they have readily acknowledged can number up to a hundred per flight, the wing would not have made it through the mission.
Did a significant number of tiles get knocked off in a vulnerable area?
Who knows at this time.
The fact is, if the wing had been punctured on liftoff, the craft would have never made it to the re-entry phase.

[NormsRevenge]

The shuttle is launched with the tires uninflated, if I am not mistaken.

Some questions....

At what point in the re-entry process are they re-inflated, relative to the shuttle's re-entry timeline?

I am not clear if the tires had already been re-inflated when the loss occurred of vehicle.

Is it after falling below so many hundred thousand feet or 8-?

Does this process and its initiation ever vary?

What type of mechanism/mechinery is used and how is the process initiated, etc?

Any pyros involved in opening the wheel doors?

[oregon conservative]

"Dude, I am not a space engineer."
LOL and very obvious!!

[neuron2]

Just as I suspected. You're a know-nothing, ignorantly speculating with an assumed air of authority.

[dtel]

Much as the rest of you.

[neuron2]

The fact is, if the wing had been punctured on liftoff, the craft would have never made it to the re-entry phase.

Please elaborate upon and cite your authority for this assertion. How big a puncture are you talking about? A pin prick? A pencil sized hole? What is the mechanism for destruction that you rely upon?