This Echo is READ ONLY !   NO Un-Authorized Messages Please!
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Steve Nesbitt
Columbia Accident Investigation Board     Feb. 13, 2003
(Phone: 713/301-9571)

RELEASE: 03-072

STATEMENT BY THE COLUMBIA ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION BOARD

     Note: The CAIB has asked NASA for administrative support to 
release information to the public and the media. The following 
statement was provided by the CAIB for release.

Thermal Analysis Shows Hot Plasma Possible in Columbia Left Wheel Well 
Area

Preliminary analysis by a NASA working group this week indicates that 
the temperature indications seen in Columbia's left wheel well during 
entry would require the presence of plasma (super heated gas 
surrounding the orbiter during re- entry).

Heat transfer through the structure as from a missing tile would not 
be sufficient to cause the temperature indications seen in the last 
minutes of flight.

Additional analysis is underway, looking at various scenarios in which 
a breach of some type, allowing plasma into the wheel well area or 
elsewhere in the wing, could occur.

Other flight data including gear position indicators and drag 
information does not support the scenario of an early deployment of 
the left gear.

The search continues for possible debris from Columbia in the western 
U.S., but as of early Thursday, no debris further west than Ft. Worth, 
Texas has been confirmed as Shuttle- related.

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