: II-222 The SRBs separated from the ET once they had expended their fuel and fell into the Atlantic Ocean under a parachute. Two solid rocket boosters (SRBs) were connected to the ET, and burned for the first two minutes of flight. The payload bay doors and parts of the upper wing surfaces were coated in reusable felt surface insulation, as the temperature there remained below 370 ☌ (700 ☏). Areas on the upper parts of the orbiter vehicle were coated in a white low-temperature reusable surface insulation, which provided protection for temperatures below 650 ☌ (1,200 ☏). : II–112–113 The entire underside of the orbiter vehicle, as well as the other hottest surfaces, were protected with high-temperature reusable surface insulation. Thicker RCC tiles were developed and installed in 1998 to prevent damage from micrometeoroid and orbital debris. The nose cone and leading edges of the wings experienced temperatures above 1,300 ☌ (2,300 ☏), and were protected by reinforced carbon-carbon tiles (RCC). The TPS primarily consisted of four types of tiles. : 72–73 During reentry, the TPS experienced temperatures up to 1,600 ☌ (3,000 ☏), but had to keep the orbiter vehicle's aluminum skin temperature below 180 ☌ (350 ☏). In contrast with previous US spacecraft, which had used ablative heat shields, the reusability of the orbiter required a multi-use heat shield. The orbiter was protected from heat during reentry by the thermal protection system (TPS), a thermal soaking protective layer around the orbiter. : II-170 Once in space, the crew maneuvered using the two smaller, aft-mounted Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engines. : II-5 Three Space Shuttle main engines (SSMEs) were mounted at the aft end of the orbiter and provided thrust during launch. The orbiter contained the crew compartment, where the crew predominantly lived and worked throughout a mission. : 5 Columbia was the first space-rated orbiter constructed, following atmospheric test vehicle Enterprise. : II-1 Five operational orbiters were built during the Space Shuttle program. : 363 The orbiter was a reusable, winged vehicle that launched vertically and landed as a glider. : III–148 At launch, it consisted of the orbiter, which contained the crew and payload, the external tank (ET), and the two solid rocket boosters (SRBs). : 5, 195 It flew for the first time in April 1981, : III–24 and was used to conduct in-orbit research, : III–188 and deploy commercial, : III–66 military, : III–68 and scientific payloads. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Space Shuttle was a partially-reusable spacecraft operated by the U.S. The circled area on the ET is the left bipod foam ramp, and the circled area on the orbiter is the location that was damaged. Except for one mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, subsequent Space Shuttle missions were flown only to the ISS to allow the crew to use it as a haven if damage to the orbiter prevented safe reentry.Ĭolumbia prior to launch. NASA made several technical and organizational changes to subsequent missions, including adding an on-orbit inspection to determine how well the orbiter's thermal protection system (TPS) had endured the ascent, and keeping a designated rescue mission ready in case irreparable damage was found. Construction of the International Space Station (ISS) was paused until flights resumed in July 2005 with STS-114. When Columbia reentered the atmosphere of Earth, the damage allowed hot atmospheric gases to penetrate the heat shield and destroy the internal wing structure, which caused the orbiter to become unstable and break apart.Īfter the disaster, Space Shuttle flight operations were suspended for more than two years, as they had been after the Challenger disaster. Before reentry, NASA managers had limited the investigation, reasoning that the crew could not have fixed the problem if it had been confirmed. Similar foam shedding had occurred during previous Space Shuttle launches, causing damage that ranged from minor to nearly catastrophic, but some engineers suspected that the damage to Columbia was more serious. The disaster was the second of two fatal accidents in the Space Shuttle program, after the 1986 breakup of Challenger soon after liftoff.ĭuring the STS-107 launch, a piece of the insulative foam broke off from the Space Shuttle external tank and struck the thermal protection system tiles on the orbiter's left wing. The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster was a fatal incident in the United States space program that occurred on February 1, 2003, when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it reentered the atmosphere, killing all seven crew members.
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