Columbia Space Shuttle: The Disaster By: Blair Raphael

Columbia’s History Named after Robert Gray’s Columbia Sailboat First space worthy space shuttle in NASA’s orbital fleet Its first mission lasted from April 12 th to April 14 th, 1981 Its final, most famous mission was the space shuttle’s 28 th flight

Columbia had an extraordinary weight of 8,000 pounds It was the only orbiter in the fleet that had an all-tile thermal protection system (TPS) –The TPS is the barrier that protects the Space Shuttle Orbiter during the searing heat of atmospheric re-entry

Only operational orbiter with an American Flag and the “USA” logo on its left wing Columbia’s SISTL pod was located on top of its tailfin and was used by NASA for experiments

Crew Members Michael P. Anderson Lt. Colonel, U.S. Air Force Payload Commander –December, 25 th 1959-February 1 st, 2003 David M. Brown Captain, U.S. Navy Mission Specialist –April 16, 1956–February 1, 2003 Kalpana Chawla Mission Specialist –July 1 st, 1961-February 1, 2003

Crew Members Laurel Blair Salton Clark Mission Specialist –October 3 rd, 1961 – February 1 st, 2003 Rick D. Husband Colonel, U.S. Air Force Shuttle Commander –July 12 th, February 1 st, 2003 William "Willie" McCool Commander, U.S. Navy Shuttle Pilot –September 23 rd, 1962 – February 1 st, 2003 Ilan Ramon Colonel, Israeli Air Force Payload Specialist –June 20 th, 1954 – February 1 st, 2003

While concluding its 28 th mission, the Columbia space shuttle broke apart This happened 16 minutes before scheduled landing time into Florida’s Kennedy Space Center All seven crew members were killed in the debris

A seal on the left wing was struck by a piece of foam the size of a small briefcase during liftoff and fell off the next day At the time, this didn’t seem like a problem While the Columbia was still in orbit, engineers suspected damage but no major investigations were ordered by NASA

During re-entry, the damaged area allowed the hot gasses to penetrate and destroy the internal wing structure Damage to the internal wing structure caused the in-flight break up Massive ground searches recovered crew remains and many vehicle fragments