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STS-107 Mishap Response Status Report No 08 
Monday, Feb. 24, 2003 - 5 p.m. CST
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas 

Helped by sunny but breezy weekend weather in Texas and Louisiana,
ground searchers continued to recover debris believed to be from Space 
Shuttle Columbia.  Among the finds were what was thought to be a main 
landing gear strut, additional parts of the left wing and a 4-by 
6-foot piece of mid-body sidewall.

Other items included what appeared to be a piece of Orbital
Maneuvering System tankage and protective heat-resistant tiles. 

More than 2,400 ground searchers were in the field Sunday, in
20-member teams based in the Texas towns of Nacogdoches, Hemphill,
Palestine and Corsicana.  An additional 440 people were training for
search activities. Methodical ground grid searches continued to be
productive in aiding in the discovery of smaller pieces of shuttle
debris. 

High winds hampered air and water searches during the weekend. The
addition of another Navy team brought the total number of dive teams
to eight.  Other dive teams represented the Houston and Galveston
police departments, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the
Environmental Protection Agency. Despite the wind, searchers were able 
to recover pieces of tile from Lake Bardwell near Waxahachie, Texas.

The effort to consolidate three search coordination field offices
(Barksdale AFB, La., the Joint Reserve Base (Carswell Field), Texas,
and Hemphill, Texas) into the main facility at Lufkin, Texas,
progressed over the weekend.

Investigators searched sites near Caliente, Nev., for what could be a
piece of Columbia debris tracked by air traffic control radar during
the time of the spacecraft's Feb. 1 descent over California and
Nevada. While some material was recovered in the area, none was
confirmed as coming from Columbia. 

Similar work to narrow the possible locations of other debris in the
U.S. Southwest continued; although, no new areas were identified for
further investigation.  As of late Monday, no shuttle debris was
confirmed west of the Littlefield, Texas. area.

For more information about NASA on the Internet, see: www.nasa.gov

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