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STS-107
Status Report #27
Tuesday, February 11, 2003 - 2 p.m. CST 
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas 

STS-107 Mishap Response Status Report #1

Columbia debris recovery efforts continued today centered in areas of
eastern Texas and western Louisiana. More than 1,600 recovered items
are at Barksdale Air Force Base, Shreveport, La. Barksdale is the
central field collection point for debris being shipped to the Kennedy 
Space Center (KSC), Fla., to begin Shuttle Columbia reconstruction.

In addition, more than 300 items are at each of the field collection
sites in Lufkin, Palestine and San Augustine, Texas, awaiting shipment 
to Barksdale. A smaller volume is at Carswell Naval Air Station in 
Fort Worth, Texas. Shipments of debris from Barksdale AFB to KSC begin 
this week. Two truckloads of items departed Louisiana en-route to KSC 
today.

No confirmed debris has been recovered west of the Fort Worth area.
Teams continue to investigate reports from 27 states and eight
jurisdictions outside of the U.S. Of 179 reports received from
California, 105 have been closed. Of 162 reports in Arizona, eight
have been closed. Of 12 reports in New Mexico, four have been closed.

To assist recovery efforts, searchers are using Civil Air Patrol
volunteers, airborne radar and other assets. U.S. Navy assets also may 
be used to search the waters of Toledo Bend and Sam Rayburn reservoirs 
due to several eyewitness reports of debris entering those lakes. The 
search may continue for several weeks. Civil Air Patrol volunteers 
also are searching west of the Fort Worth area in regions along 
Columbia's flight path. 

Preliminary identification of some debris reported by the Mishap
Investigation Team included a roughly two-foot square section of an
external tank umbilical door, a hydrazine propellant tank and
electronics equipment from the Ku-band communications system. The
Ku-band communications debris was erroneously identified yesterday as
one of Columbia's five flight control computers, known as General
Purpose Computers (GPCs). No GPCs have been identified among recovered 
items. All identifications of items are preliminary.

On the International Space Station, Expedition Six Commander Ken
Bowersox, NASA Station Science Officer Don Pettit and Flight Engineer
Nikolai Budarin took time out from unpacking items delivered by a
Progress-10 Russian supply craft for their first news conference since 
the Columbia accident. The conference took place about three hours 
after the Progress' thrusters boosted the altitude of the station 
approximately 6.5 miles to an orbit of 240 x 255 miles.

Bowersox said the crew first heard of the loss of Columbia from
Johnson Space Center Director Jefferson Howell, and the crew is being
kept apprised of the status of the accident investigation.

"My first reaction was pure shock," Bowersox said. "I was
numb, and it 
was hard to believe that what we were experiencing was really
happening. And then as reality wore on, we were able to feel some
sadness." 

Bowersox said Mission Control has reduced the crew's schedule to allow 
time for grief and reflection, and the crew was provided ample
opportunity for communication with families for emotional support.

"We've had time to grieve for our friends, and that was very
important. When you're up here this long, you can't just bottle up
your emotions and focus all of the time," Bowersox said. "It's
important for us to acknowledge that the people on STS-107 were our
friends, that we had a connection with them, and that we feel their
loss, and each of us had a chance to shed some tears. But now, it's
time to move forward and we're doing that slowly," he said.

Bowersox and Pettit said they have told Mission Control they are
willing to stay in orbit for a year or more if necessary, and they
would consider the extra time a bonus, not a hardship. They said that
if it were decided that a two-person crew should relieve them, that
crew would be kept busy maintaining station systems but could still
perform useful research. 

"There would be time to do some level of research, and by virtue of
having people here, you are always doing research on your body itself, 
looking at the effects of long duration, weightlessness on the human 
physiology," Pettit said.

"So it's important to keep people on Station. If we could continue to 
collect data and life science data in data sets for 10 or 15 year
periods, it may actually turn out to be one of the more valuable data
sets we get," he said.

The Expedition Six crew will conduct additional interviews with ABC,
CNN and NBC starting at 9:30 a.m. CST Wednesday. The interviews will
be broadcast live on NASA Television. NASA TV is available on AMC-2,
Transponder 9C, vertical polarization at 85 degrees west longitude,
3880 MHz, with audio at 6.8 MHz.

For more information about NASA on the Internet:

www.nasa.gov

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