Columbia STS-107 Entry Timeline [As of 03/10/03 Rev. G] (CBS News)

Email from CBSNews and Webpage ^ | 10 March, 2003 | Compiled by William Harwood

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

bttt

[commish]

Technically, you can fly a rock with the electronics.

And the F-4 is a perfect example of the other end of that statement "with enough forward Thrust even a Brick can fly"

The F-4 may have been the only airframe ever with a Negative Glide Ratio.

[Hanging Chad]

bump so I can find thhis for a later reading

[Thud]

Husband and Cool apparently tried to take control 15.5 seconds before breakup.

[sam_paine]

Husband and Cool apparently tried to take control 15.5 seconds before breakup.

Well, that depends on what you mean by "breakup." They tried to take manual control 15.5 seconds before loss of hull integrity, or think of it as 9 MINUTES AFTER the deterioration began and began registering on sensors, or days after the initial damage was caused....

[mikegi]

I agree. I'm an engineer by training and can read almost all of it with detachment, but this quote from Husband is chilling:

08:46:56 a.m. - STS-ICOM: Husband: "Yep. Yeah, you definitely don't want to be outside now."

Thirteen minutes later, during the time of maximum heating, he was "outside" and in the "blast furnace".

[John Jamieson]

Very well put; I agree so much!

John

[mikegi]

08:51:19/08:52:49 a.m. - Department of Defense sensor data shows first (earliest known) off-nominal event. The nature of this event is not yet known, nor is the nature or location of the sensor. Analysis of data after a data dropout shows numerous jet firings occurred around this event (L2L, L3L, R2R, R3R). NEW

I don't understand exactly what's being said here. Did the DoD sensor pick up the firing of the jets or something that occurred before the firings? If I understand the terminology correctly, the left side fired first (L2L/L3L) followed by the right side (R2R/R3R). Kind of like the Columbia was fishtailing.

Less than two minutes later there is the first debris report. Is it possible to see, from the ground, the effect of a single tile falling off (eg. a separate contrail)?

[Budge]

Thanks for the ping, BY. Have you linked it to Bones Mccoy's thread yet?

[John Jamieson]

Yes, most meteors are a grain of sand.

[Free Vulcan]

Looks like they had time to know what was happening to them. Chilling.