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STS-107
Report #21 
Monday, Feb. 3, 2003 - 7:00 p.m. CST 
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas 

NASA engineers continued to review data and recover debris from the 
Space Shuttle Columbia today as the analysis of what caused the 
orbiter to break up Saturday en route to landing continued.

Space Shuttle Program Manager Ron Dittemore told an afternoon briefing 
that several teams of engineers are making progress in their study of 
data and video from Columbia's launch and entry, but cautioned that it 
is a "massive job" requiring round-the-clock efforts to piece together 
the events that led to a loss of communications with the Shuttle over 
north central Texas 16 minutes prior to touchdown.

Still, Dittemore said NASA would pause Tuesday for a memorial ceremony 
at the Johnson Space Center at 1:00 p.m. EST to honor the lives and 
the memory of Columbia's astronauts, Rick Husband, William McCool, 
Dave Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Mike Anderson, Laurel Clark and Ilan 
Ramon. President and Mrs. Bush will join NASA Administrator Sean 
O'Keefe at JSC for the memorial which is closed to the public, but 
which will be broadcast on NASA Television.

Dittemore said the memorial represents an opportunity to take time to
remember the sacrifice of the astronauts, to mourn them and to
"remember our friends."

Dittemore offered additional and refined information regarding the 
timeline of events that led to Columbia's breakup on Saturday (all 
times CST): 

-       At 7:52 a.m. CST, three-left main gear brake line temperature
sensors showed an unusual rise in the left wheel well area.

-       At 7:53 a.m., a fourth left brake line strut actuator 
temperature sensor showed a 30-40 degree rise in temperature over a 
five-minute period, slightly higher than reported yesterday.

-       At 7:55 a.m., A fifth left brake line main gear sensor showed 
a sharp rise in temperature.

-       At 7:57 a.m., left wing temperature sensors failed "off-scale 
low", meaning no further data was being received on the ground.

-       And at 7:59 a.m., just before communications was lost with 
Columbia, there was evidence of drag on the aerosurfaces of the left 
wing, causing two out of four yaw steering jets in that area of the 
Shuttle to fire for 1.5 seconds to counteract the increased drag.


Dittemore said more time will be needed to retrieve an additional 32 
seconds of data acquired by ground computers after communications was 
lost with Columbia to see if it is useful to the inquiry. He said 
engineers would go directly to the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite 
System ground station hub in White Sands, New Mexico to collect and 
analyze that data in its pristine form.

Although the investigative teams have a "high interest" in the left 
hand wheel well area of Columbia, Dittemore cautioned that a
temperature increase there does not indicate that a structural problem
occurred as a factor in the vehicle's breakup. In fact, Dittemore said 
the data suggests that "something else" may have been 
happening at the time, not indicative of a structural breach.

Responding to inquiries regarding a piece of foam insulation which 
fell off Columbia's external fuel tank about 80 seconds after launch 
that struck the left wing of the Shuttle, Dittemore said imagery 
analysis showed that the foam measured about 20 inches by 16 inches by 
6 inches and weighed about 2.67 pounds. He reiterated that engineering 
analysis conducted during the flight concluded for NASA managers that 
although the foam might have caused some structural damage to the wing 
area, it would not have been sufficient to cause a catastrophic event.

"There is some other missing link contributing to this event," 
Dittemore said. We are extremely interested in seeing any debris that 
may have fallen upstream of the main impact area," referring to 
any additional debris which might be recovered in an area to the west 
of Texas.

Earlier today, former President George H.W. Bush and Mrs. Barbara Bush
visited the International Space Station flight control room at the 
Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX to pay their respects to the flight 
controllers and to the Expedition 6 crew aboard the orbital complex.

The former president told Expedition 6 Commander Ken Bowersox, Flight
Engineer Nikolai Budarin and NASA ISS Science Officer Don Pettit that
President Bush relayed his "full confidence in the space program" in a 
conversation with the elder Bush Sunday. The former president told the 
crew the men and women of NASA were showing "great courage" in the 
wake of the accident.

Bowersox, Budarin and Pettit spent the day preparing for the docking 
of a Russian Progress resupply vehicle to the ISS Tuesday at 9:50 a.m. 
EST. The new cargo ship, which contains a ton of food, fuel and 
supplies for the crew, was successfully launched Sunday from the 
Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. NASA TV coverage of the Progress 
docking to the ISS begins at 9 a.m. CST Tuesday.

The next STS-107 Accident Response briefing will be held on Tuesday, 
Feb. 4 at NASA Headquarters in Washington at 4:30 p.m. EST. Status 
reports will be issued as developments warrant.

NASA TV is on AMC-2, Transponder 9C, vertical polarization at 85 
degrees west longitude, 3880 MHz, with audio at 6.8 MHz.

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