THE PRICE TO THE STARS

Amber Jorgenson | Published: Thursday, January 25, 2018



The Columbia space shuttle crew’s official photo for mission STS-107 was taken in October 2001. From left to right: David Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, William McCool, and Ilan Ramon.

NASA
NASA is holding its annual Day of Remembrance today to honor the crew members of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, as well as other NASA employees who have lost their lives while advancing space exploration.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of Columbia’s last space shuttle mission, which suffered a catastrophic and fatal end. The unfortunate event shook the science community and the public, but the lessons taken away from the incident overhauled NASA’s approach to safety concerns and future space travel.

Columbia’s last mission

On January 16, 2003, Columbia embarked on its 28th space shuttle mission, designated STS-107, to carry out a series of microgravity science experiments. However, about 80 seconds into the shuttle’s launch from the Kennedy Space Center, a large piece of foam insulation split off from the “bipod ramp” — a piece used to attach the external tank to the shuttle. Engineers used camera footage to review the incident, and found that the suitcase-sized piece of foam struck the shuttle’s left wing as it fell. However, ground workers weren’t able to determine exactly where the damage occurred or how severe it was. Furthermore,
One of the more substantial objects recovered from Columbia was its nose gear with its tires still intact.

NASA/Columbia Accident Investigation Board
Search and rescue

Search and rescue teams, along with thousands of volunteers, spent several weeks combing through parts of Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas trying to recover as much of Columbia as possible. NASA was eventually able to recover 84,000 pieces of debris, which added up to about 40 percent of the space shuttle.

Within the thousands of pieces of debris, NASA was able to locate the remains of each of the crew members, verified through DNA. An investigation into the incident later determined that the foam shed during Columbia’s launch created a hole in the left wing, which caused extensive damage to the shuttle’s sensors and allowed atmospheric gas to leak into the cabin during de-orbit. The resulting damage caused the craft to lose control and disintegrate as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, killing everyone onboard.

The search team also recovered aspects of science experiments conducted onboard, including groups of small worms, known as Caenorhabditis elegans. The study involved feeding the worms a synthetic nutrient to see if they would grow in space, but due to the amount of time that it took to recover the worms, the data was lost. However, the fact that many of the worms, which are only about 1 millimeter long, survived the crash with minimal heat damage was a scientific discovery in itself.

The aftermath

After the incident, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CIAB) was formed to thoroughly investigate the shuttle’s destruction. Through the investigation, they determined that NASA had a tendency to overlook potential problems, like foam shedding, if they hadn’t caused major incidences in the past. They also concluded that a space-based rescue attempt could have been made by moving up the launch of the planned Atlantis shuttle to February 10 (Columbia could have orbited until February 15).

The CAIB also issued recommendations to NASA to overhaul their approach to safety by actively seeking out any potential problems and mitigating them before they occur. NASA took the boards advice by suspending missions for over two years while they redesigned their external tank and initiated additional safety precautions.

In July 2005, they tested new safety measures — such as additional cameras to monitor foam shedding — on the Discovery space shuttle mission STS-114, but they found that more foam had broken off of the shuttle than expected. This forced them to again delay any further missions until July 2006, from which the missions continued until the International Space Station was complete. The station’s 2011 completion marked the end of the space shuttle program."