STS-107<br />Report #21 <br />Monday, Feb. 3, 2003 - 7:00 p.m. CST <br />Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas <br /> <br />NASA engineers continued to review data and recover debris from the Space<br />Shuttle Columbia today as the analysis of what caused the orbiter to break<br />up Saturday en route to landing continued.<br /><br />Space Shuttle Program Manager Ron Dittemore told an afternoon briefing that<br />several teams of engineers are making progress in their study of data and<br />video from Columbia's launch and entry, but cautioned that it is a<br />"massive job" requiring round-the-clock efforts to piece together<br />the events that led to a loss of communications with the Shuttle over north<br />central Texas 16 minutes prior to touchdown.<br /><br />Still, Dittemore said NASA would pause Tuesday for a memorial ceremony at<br />the Johnson Space Center at 1:00 p.m. EST to honor the lives and the memory<br />of Columbia's astronauts, Rick Husband, William McCool, Dave Brown, Kalpana<br />Chawla, Mike Anderson, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon. President and Mrs. Bush<br />will join NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe at JSC for the memorial which is<br />closed to the public, but which will be broadcast on NASA Television.<br /><br />Dittemore said the memorial represents an opportunity to take time to<br />remember the sacrifice of the astronauts, to mourn them and to<br />"remember our friends."<br /><br />Dittemore offered additional and refined information regarding the timeline<br />of events that led to Columbia's breakup on Saturday (all times CST): <br />· At 7:52 a.m. CST, three-left main gear brake line temperature<br />sensors showed an unusual rise in the left wheel well area.<br />· At 7:53 a.m., a fourth left brake line strut actuator temperature<br />sensor showed a 30-40 degree rise in temperature over a five-minute period,<br />slightly higher than reported yesterday.<br />· At 7:55 a.m., A fifth left brake line main gear sensor showed a<br />sharp rise in temperature.<br />· At 7:57 a.m., left wing temperature sensors failed "off-scale<br />low", meaning no further data was being received on the ground.<br />· And at 7:59 a.m., just before communications was lost with Columbia,<br />there was evidence of drag on the aerosurfaces of the left wing, causing two<br />out of four yaw steering jets in that area of the Shuttle to fire for 1.5<br />seconds to counteract the increased drag.<br /><br /><br />Dittemore said more time will be needed to retrieve an additional 32 seconds<br />of data acquired by ground computers after communications was lost with<br />Columbia to see if it is useful to the inquiry. He said engineers would go<br />directly to the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System ground station hub<br />in White Sands, New Mexico to collect and analyze that data in its pristine<br />form.<br /><br />Although the investigative teams have a "high interest" in the<br />left hand wheel well area of Columbia, Dittemore cautioned that a<br />temperature increase there does not indicate that a structural problem<br />occurred as a factor in the vehicle's breakup. In fact, Dittemore said the<br />data suggests that "something else" may have been happening at the<br />time, not indicative of a structural breach.<br /><br />Responding to inquiries regarding a piece of foam insulation which fell off<br />Columbia's external fuel tank about 80 seconds after launch that struck the<br />left wing of the Shuttle, Dittemore said imagery analysis showed that the<br />foam measured about 20 inches by 16 inches by 6 inches and weighed about<br />2.67 pounds. He reiterated that engineering analysis conducted during the<br />flight concluded for NASA managers that although the foam might have caused<br />some structural damage to the wing area, it would not have been sufficient<br />to cause a catastrophic event.<br /><br />"There is some other missing link contributing to this event,"<br />Dittemore said. We are extremely interested in seeing any debris that may<br />have fallen upstream of the main impact area," referring to any<br />additional debris which might be recovered in an area to the west of Texas.<br /><br />Earlier today, former President George H.W. Bush and Mrs. Barbara Bush<br />visited the International Space Station flight control room at the Johnson<br />Space Center, Houston, TX to pay their respects to the flight controllers<br />and to the Expedition 6 crew aboard the orbital complex.<br /><br />The former president told Expedition 6 Commander Ken Bowersox, Flight<br />Engineer Nikolai Budarin and NASA ISS Science Officer Don Pettit that<br />President Bush relayed his "full confidence in the space program"<br />in a conversation with the elder Bush Sunday. The former president told the<br />crew the men and women of NASA were showing "great courage" in the<br />wake of the accident.<br /><br />Bowersox, Budarin and Pettit spent the day preparing for the docking of a<br />Russian Progress resupply vehicle to the ISS Tuesday at 9:50 a.m. EST. The<br />new cargo ship, which contains a ton of food, fuel and supplies for the<br />crew, was successfully launched Sunday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in<br />Kazakhstan. NASA TV coverage of the Progress docking to the ISS begins at 9<br />a.m. CST Tuesday.<br /><br />The next STS-107 Accident Response briefing will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 4<br />at NASA Headquarters in Washington at 4:30 p.m. EST. Status reports will be<br />issued as developments warrant.<br /><br />NASA TV is on AMC-2, Transponder 9C, vertical polarization at 85 degrees<br />west longitude, 3880 MHz, with audio at 6.8 MHz.