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STS-107
Report #24 
Thursday, Feb. 6, 2003 - 7:00 p.m. CST
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas 

The independent board charged with determining what caused the
destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia and the loss of its seven
astronauts began its work today at the Johnson Space Center, Houston.
Recovery teams continued to search for debris from California to
Louisiana. 

Under the leadership of retired Navy admiral Harold Gehman, Jr., the
Columbia Accident Board received a briefing from Shuttle Program
Manager Ron Dittemore. The board began the process of gathering
material collected since Columbia's breakup during reentry just 16
minutes before landing on Feb 1. 

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe reaffirmed the Board will act as a
"totally independent entity in assessing all of the factors"
associated with Columbia's loss. Administrator O'Keefe added, "We will 
be guided by the findings of the Board." 

As search teams looked for debris for hundreds of miles throughout the 
west, the southwest and the Gulf Coast, O'Keefe said he met with the 
International Space Station Partners today following the memorial
ceremony for Columbia's astronauts at Washington's National Cathedral
attended by Vice-President Cheney. O'Keefe said the Partners expressed 
their support for the recovery effort and NASA's vow to find the cause 
for the accident for the resumption of safe flight operations.

O'Keefe indicated that Admiral Gehman may consider adding another
member or members to the Independent Board that have no affiliation or 
ties to NASA in further strengthening its charter. The Charter is
available on line at:

http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/board_documents.pdf

O'Keefe will appear before a joint hearing of the Senate and House
Science Committees, Wednesday, Feb. 12, to provide details of the
progress of the investigation. 

In his afternoon briefing, Dittemore described the pace of the inquiry 
and data and debris collection as "fast and furious." He said the 
Shuttle program would support Admiral Gehman's Board "in any way we 
can". 

Dittemore said more than 1000 pieces of Shuttle debris have been
recovered. Items found as far west as California are currently being
analyzed to see whether they are from Columbia. As of today, no debris 
found west of Fort Worth, Texas, has been positively identified as 
coming from Columbia. 

"No possibility is being ruled out as the root cause for Columbia's
loss," Dittemore said. "We are still looking for that elusive missing
link." Dittemore said bad weather in the west today hampered efforts
to recover additional debris. The forecast calls for improving
conditions by the weekend. 

The recovered debris will be analyzed at Barksdale Air Force Base,
La., before being returned to the Kennedy Space Center for
reconstruction of Columbia, to the extent possible, and final
disposition. 

Dittemore added a fault tree is being developed, based on existing
Probability Risk Assessments. He said the investigation team has
received a large number of still images and video, which are being
examined to determine if they are authentic and if they can shed light 
on the investigation. 

At the memorial service at National Cathedral, Cheney said of
Columbia's astronauts, "They were soldiers and scientists and doctors
and pilots, but above all they were explorers." "They were envoys to
the unknown," Cheney added. "They advanced human understanding by
showing human courage." 

Aboard the Station, Expedition 6 Commander Ken Bowersox, Flight
Engineer Nikolai Budarin and NASA Science Officer Don Pettit continued 
to unload the Russian Progress resupply ship that docked Tuesday.

Payload controllers continued to analyze the new power components
installed yesterday in the Microgravity Science Glovebox in the
Destiny laboratory to try to determine why a circuit breaker popped
after it was powered on by Pettit. The science facility remains off
while the troubleshooting effort is underway. 

On Friday, a memorial ceremony for Columbia's astronauts will be held
at the Kennedy Space Center. Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Administrator
O'Keefe and former astronaut Robert Crippen, Columbia's first pilot on 
STS-1, April 12, 1981, will attend. The ceremony will be live on NASA 
Television at 8:15 a.m. EST, the exact time of Columbia's deorbit burn 
last Saturday. 

The next STS-107 Accident Response briefings will be on Friday at 4:30 
p.m. EST from the Johnson Space Center. It will be on NASA TV, with 
multi-center question and answer capability for reporters at NASA 
centers. 

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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