This Echo is READ ONLY !   NO Un-Authorized Messages Please!
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Paris, 3 February 2003
Information Note
Nø 02-2003

Space Shuttle Columbia- Information Note No. 1
==============================================

At about 14:00 GMT (15:00 Central European Time), Saturday 1 February
2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia was lost and seven NASA astronauts
perished. They were Rick Husband, Mission Commander; William McCool,
Pilot; Michael Anderson, Payload Commander; Kalpana Chawla, Mission
Specialist; Laurel Clark, Mission Specialist; David Brown, Mission
Specialist and the Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, Payload Specialist.

The Director General, Antonio Rodotà, and the Director of Human
Spaceflight Jörg Feustel-Büechl, have expressed ESA's condolences to 
the NASA Administrator and other senior NASA officials and, through 
them, to the families of the astronauts.

Basic mission facts

Space Shuttle Columbia was launched on 16 January 2003 carrying a 
Spacehab module for a 16-day scientific mission  (STS 107). The 
mission was conducted at an altitude of 274 km and an inclination of 
39o. This was not a mission to the International Space Station 
Mission, it was an autonomous Space Shuttle mission with no docking to 
the ISS and no crew exchange.

In a nominal Shuttle re-entry scenario, the re-entry phase starts 
about one hour before touch down and at some 8000 km from the landing 
site at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. At that point the 
Orbiter is at an altitude of about 170 km and is travelling at about 
28000 km/h. The Orbiter is put into its correct orientation and  
reaction control system jets are fired to start the descent.

About 5 minutes later, at an altitude of about 120 km, entry into the
upper atmospheric begins with an automatic sequence monitored by an
on-board control system. During this phase, between altitudes of 81 
and 49 km, a communications blackout occurs, when radio signals cannot 
penetrate the layer of ionised gas particles surrounding the 
spacecraft. This phase lasts about 16 minutes.

The whole re-entry phase can either be flown automatically or under 
crew control.

The re-entry of Columbia on 1 February 2003 was not nominal. At about
14:00 GMT, communications with the Space Shuttle were lost. At this time,
the Orbiter was flying over Texas, about 15 minutes from landing and at
about 18 times the speed of sound. It was at an altitude of 63 km, about
1400 km from the landing site at KSC.

Video films show the spacecraft following a constant track and 
apparently slowly disintegrating. Debris is being found over a large 
area of East Texas and Louisiana, and is being collected.

The NASA Administrator, Mr Sean O'Keefe, has established an 
Interagency Mishap Investigation Board, which will provide an 
independent review of the events and activities that led up to the 
tragic loss of the seven astronauts on Space Shuttle Columbia. A 
statement has also been made by the Shuttle Programme Manager, Mr. Ron 
Dittemore, addressing the possibility of damage being caused to the 
wing of Columbia during launch, but is not yet known if this has any 
bearing on the situation.

All data is being safeguarded and, together with the retrieved debris,
will be analysed to determine the cause of the accident.

Meanwhile the Shuttle fleet is grounded and, amongst other things, the
flight of ESA astronaut Christer Fugelsang, planned for July 2003 
on-board Space Shuttle Atlantis, is under review.

International Space Station (ISS)

There are currently three crew on-board the ISS (Commander Kenneth
Bowersox, NASA, and flight engineers Nikolai Budarin, RSA, and Donald
Pettit, NASA). They were launched on 24 November 2002 on STS 113
(Endeavour) and were scheduled to return in mid-March 2003 on Shuttle
Atlantis.

A Russian Progress vehicle (9P) de-docked from the ISS as planned on 1
February, and a Soyuz flight with an unmanned Progress vehicle (10P) 
has been successfully launched on 2 February at 12:59 GMT, as planned, 
for a nominal refuel and logistics flight.

There are sufficient supplies (food, water, fuel, etc..) on-board for
several months of nominal activities. Soyuz 5S is on orbit as the 
station lifeboat and is planned to remain there until at least May 
2003.

Rosaviakosmos and NASA are currently assessing all necessary ISS and 
crew re-supply requirements for the coming months and will re-evaluate 
the manifest of the next flights of Progress (11P, planned for June 
2003) and Soyuz (6S, planned for April 2003).

The next crew exchange was planned to be on the March flight of Space
Shuttle Atlantis. The next Soyuz flight, planned for 26 April 2003, is
planned to be a taxi flight including ESA astronaut Pedro Duque. This
flight is now under active review, but in the meantime Pedro Duque, as
well as André Kuipers, who is scheduled to fly on Soyuz 7S in October
2003, are maintaining their training programme as planned.

The next several Shuttle missions to the ISS were planned to be a 
series of five truss/solar array assembly flights following an MPLM 
logistics flight, leading to the launch of Node 2 in February 2004. 
The effect of the Columbia tragedy on this sequence and schedule will 
be evaluated over the next weeks.

ESA payloads on board the mission

The Space Shuttle Columbia carried the Spacehab Research Double Module
with seven ESA payloads with a mass of 600 kg and representing
approximately 25% of the payload in the Shuttle middeck and in 
Spacehab.

All payloads performed well during the 16-day mission. However, for 
the following group of four biology and protein crystallisation 
research instruments, no scientific results will be available as no 
samples or electronic data can be provided to the Investigators for 
analysis:

- Advanced Protein Crystallisation Facility (APCF): included 38 
experiment containers. Data were recorded on a digital tape and the 
scientific results consisted of the processed experiment samples.

- Biobox was related to four experiments. The results of Biobox 
consisted of processed experiment samples. Only facility telemetry 
data are actually available which indicate a perfect performance of 
Biobox.

- Biopack was related to eight experiments. Scientific results of 
Biopack consisted of processed experiments samples.

- European Research in Space and Terrestrial Osteoporosis (ERISTO) was
related to two experiments with 12 experiment samples consisting of 
human bone cells. ERISTO made use of the OSTEO on loan from the 
Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Again, the science results were 
represented by the samples themselves.

For the following group of three research instruments all data are
available for further scientific analysis:

- Com2Plex was related to three technological experiments exploring 
new Loop Heat Pipe designs proposed by Industry. Telemetry data of all
experiments indicated already significant improvements of heat 
transfer capabilities. More detailed analyses of the data will be 
performed in the future.

- Facility for Adsorption and Surface Tension (FAST) concluded all 
three experiments during the flight. All information (telemetry and 
video data) is available for further analysis by three investigator 
groups.

- Advanced Respiratory Monitoring System (ARMS) was related to 7 
flight experiments and 1 ground experiment in pulmonary and 
cardio-vascular research in microgravity. All pre-flight Baseline Data 
Collection (BDC) information and all flight data are available in 
electronic form for further analysis by the Investigators.


For further information, please contact :
ESA Media Relations Service
Phone: + 33 1 53 69 77 13
Fax: + 33 1 53 69 7690

 - End of File -
================

---