human remains space shuttle columbia debris field

The massive search for debris-now nearly six weeks old-includes 11 surface ships, two manned submarines and three robot submersibles. Wreckage recovered to date includes blasted fragments of a satellite booster that was riding in Challenger’s payload bay, parts of the ship’s wings and fuselage and all three of the shuttle’s powerhouse main engines. Salvage efforts so far have yielded only 10% of Challenger’s 126-ton bulk. This image from a NASA handout video shows a close up of a piece of debris falling from the external tank, then striking the left-wing of the Space Shuttle Columbia during launch on January 16, 2003. Officials said tracking radar detected 14 large objects falling toward the ocean immediately after the fiery detonation, including the shuttle’s twin booster rockets, which continued to fire until safety officers beamed up self-destruct commands when one appeared to be heading back for the coast. But the bulk of the wreckage splashed into the Atlantic, sinking to the bottom or drifting north with the Gulf Stream. Some of it landed on the sandy shore, luring the curious to comb the beaches. The smoke and flame appeared near a joint between the bottom two segments of the solid fuel rocket.ĭebris scattered across the sky after the explosion. Photographs of the Challenger launch show a puff of black smoke spewing from the booster milliseconds after the spacecraft’s engines were ignited and a spurt of flame pouring from the same area 15 seconds before the explosion. Wreckage of the shuttle’s right solid-fuel booster rocket is believed to be the key to understanding the tragedy in space. Recovery of the crew compartment probably will not answer the perplexing questions about why Challenger’s launch became a disaster. Clearly all pieces of evidence are important,” he said. STS-107 was a flight dedicated to various experiments that required a microgravity environment. “I would not want to characterize its importance. Columbia, which had made the shuttle program’s first flight into space in 1981, lifted off for its 28th mission, STS-107, on January 16, 2003. Mark Weinberg, a spokesman for the presidential commission investigating the shuttle explosion, said he could not comment on the significance of the find to the commission’s probe. In the forward seats of the upper flight deck were mission commander Francis R. The crew module is a 2,525-cubic-foot pressurized cabin in the front of the shuttle.Īt blastoff, McAuliffe was strapped into a chair in the compartment’s mid-deck. The base is 25 miles south of Cape Canaveral. “Assistance in positive identification of crew will be provided by Armed Forces Institute of Pathology personnel located at the Patrick Air Force Base Hospital.” The mission, designated STS-107, was the twenty-eighth flight for the. It was the second Space Shuttle mission to end in disaster, after the loss of Challenger and crew in 1986. “Local security measures are being taken to assure that the recovery operations can take place in a safe and orderly manner,” the statement said. On Saturday February 1, 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it reentered the atmosphere over Texas and Louisiana, killing all seven astronauts on board.

Human remains space shuttle columbia debris field