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Disintegrates over texas { February 1 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10088-2003Feb1.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10088-2003Feb1.html
Shuttle Disintegrates in Flames Over Texas
All Seven Astronauts Believed to Be Dead
By Guy Gugliotta and William Harwood
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, February 1, 2003; 11:22 AM
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Feb. 1 -- The space shuttle Columbia, traveling 12,500 miles per hour as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere after a 16-day science mission, disintegrated in flames 200,000 feet above north central Texas today with seven astronauts aboard.
Residents of north Texas said they heard a loud explosion about 9 a.m. Video cameras recorded multiple contrails spraying outward from the spacecraft, minutes away from landing on a brilliant, sunny winter's morning.
NASA immediately declared an emergency and warned area residents to watch out for falling debris and to avoid touching remnants of the spacecraft which they said could be impregnated with toxic chemicals.
In Washington, officials said President Bush had been informed of the incident by Chief of Staff Andrew Card. White House spokesmen said Bush was awaiting further information from NASA and was meeting with aides at Camp David before returning to the White House.
The crew of seven, led by mission chief Rick Husband, an Air Force colonel, included five other Americans and the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, an Israeli Air Force colonel.
Officials said there was no indication of terrorism, and a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press said there was no threat made against the flight. The shuttle, flying at an altitude of 207,000 feet over north-central Texas when it lost contact, was out of range of a surface-to-air missile, the official said.
Flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston lost contact with Columbia around 9 a.m. Prior to that moment, nothing appeared unusual with the shuttle's fiery descent to Earth, and controllers expected an on-time landing at the Kennedy Space Center at 9:16 a.m.
But efforts to recontact the shuttle were unsuccessful and as the minutes dragged by, flight controllers grew increasingly concerned.
The shuttle returns to Earth as an unpowered glider, using small maneuvering jets to change its orientation until it gets deep enough in the atmosphere for its aerosurfaces to take effect. Because it flies as a glider, along a very specific trajectory, the shuttle has no fly-around capability and must reach the intended runway.
On launch day, a piece of insulating foam on the Columbia's external fuel tank came off during liftoff and was believed to have struck the shuttle's left wing, but Leroy Cain, the lead flight director in Mission Control, said Friday that engineers had concluded that any damage to the wing was considered minor and posed no safety hazard.
As the landing time approached, powerful C-band radars at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Patrick Air Force Base scanned the skies in vain for signs of the shuttle.
Mission control commentator James Hartsfield said Cain had declared a "contingency," telling controllers to protect any and all data beamed down from the shuttle prior to the loss of contact.
Besides Husband and Ramon, the shuttle crew included pilot William "Willie" McCool, flight engineer Kalpana Chawla, physicians Laurel Clark and David Brown and payload commander Michael Anderson.
In 42 years of U.S. human space flight, there had never been an accident during the descent to Earth or landing. On Jan. 28, 1986, space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff.
Gugliotta reported from Washington
© 2003 The Associated Press
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