The disaster of the shuttle Columbia on February 1, 2003: causes, crew

Everyone knows that flying into space is associated with a high risk for life. A further confirmation of this is the catastrophe of the Columbia shuttle. But, unlike other similar incidents, there are especially many mysterious inconsistencies associated with this tragic event. Let's still figure out how the Columbia shuttle accident happened.

History of the Columbia shuttle

Before you cover the last flight of the shuttle Columbia, let's take a quick look at its history. This will allow us to learn more about the nuances of the tragedy.
Space shuttle reusable shuttle Columbia began to build as part of the NASA program in 1975. The work was commissioned in 1979.

It is noteworthy that it was Colombia that was the first device of the Space Shuttle program. This program provided for traveling to space to use a new mode of transport - space shuttles, the shape of which was very similar to the design of the aircraft. Unlike the spacecraft of the earlier generation, the shuttles could make not one but many flights into space. Prior to this, NASA scientists have launched devices of this class in the framework of the Enterprise program, flying within the boundaries of the Earth's atmosphere.

The Columbia shuttle named after the ship, which at the end of the XVIII century explored the shores of British Columbia.

The shuttle started in 1981. This was the first flight that the US space vehicle has made in the last 6 years. In the NASA code classification, he was assigned the STS-1 number.

Each subsequent flight in the space shuttle program was assigned the following number. The last shuttle flight Columbia in 2003, the 28th according to the account, had in the NASA numbering the serial number STS-107.

Design of the shuttle "Columbia"

As stated above, the Columbia shuttle, however, like all spacecraft of this type, had the shape of an airplane.

"Columbia" was different from the shuttles produced later, heavier weight and the lack of a module for docking. Thus, the apparatus could not dock with either the Mir station or the International Space Station.

The space shuttle was launched using a solid-propellant rocket accelerator. In addition to the spacecraft and the dual-rocket accelerator, the structure included a very voluminous fuel tank filled with liquid oxygen and hydrogen. The division of the rocket accelerator occurs at an altitude of 45 km, and the fuel tank - at an altitude of 113 km.

The orbital rocketplot had a length of just over 37 m, the wingspan was about 24 m, the mass without payload was 68.5 tonnes.

Mission STS-107

Expedition STS-107 of 2003 was the 113th flight in the framework of the US Space Shuttle program and the 28th shuttle flight Columbia.

The mission of this expedition was a complex of various observations of the Earth, as well as experiments on microgravity (Extended Duration Orbiter and Freestar). The Columbia shuttle (2003) had a research module called Spacexab (SPACEHAB), which was an additional load. The module served to ensure that during flights in space, astronauts in it could conduct various studies.

Crew

Now let's find out what the STS-107 crew was like. He consisted of seven people: five men and two women. Six of the crew were US citizens, one representing Israel.

American astronaut Richard Hasband was commander of the crew. At the time of the flight he turned 45 years old. For Hasbanda this was the second flight. His first expedition to space occurred in 1999 as part of the STS-96 flight on the Discovery shuttle.

His compatriot, forty-one-year-old William McCool, served as co-pilot. He had a long experience of serving in the US Navy. McCool was the youngest participant in the flight.

American astronaut David Brown was a flight specialist. The 46-year-old cosmonaut was the oldest among his compatriots participating in the flight. David Brown had a medical education, and he performed the functions of a doctor. As for the previous astronaut, for David it was the first flight into space.

A forty-two-year-old American of Indian descent, Kalpana Chavla, already had her own experience of flying into space. She participated in the expedition STS-87 in 1997, on the same shuttle Columbia, where she was to die in 2003. By the way, in the same expedition participated the first Ukrainian cosmonaut Leonid Kadenyuk. Thus, Chavla became the first woman of Indian origin (although not a citizen of India), who made a space flight. In the STS-107 expedition she had a flight engineer position.

For the forty-three-year-old American Michael Philip Anderson it was also the second flight into space. He took part in the STS-89 expedition in 1998 on the shuttle Endeavor together with the Russian Salizhan Sharipov. Anderson had engineering education and was a pilot of the US Air Force, rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In the expedition STS-107 he was the commander of the payload, that is, he was in charge of research work.

Laurel Clarke was the second of two women who took part in the expedition STS-107. She was an American civilian, she was 40 years old. She was a doctor by training, but she had never participated in space expeditions before. In the expedition served as a specialist in zoology.

Israeli citizen Ilan Ramon was a specially invited NASA foreign specialist. At the time of the flight he was 48 years old, that is, he was the oldest member of the crew. Ramon had the education of a specialist in electronic and computer technology, and was also a pilot of the Israeli Air Force. This was his first space flight, in which he received the position of a payload specialist, that is, along with Michael Anderson, took part in scientific research. In addition, thanks to this flight, Ilan Ramon became the first Israeli cosmonaut.

Most of the crew had children.

Start

Expedition STS-107 launched in space on January 16, 2003 from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, located in the US state of Florida. The launch pad number is 39-A.

When taking off from the shuttle, a piece of heat-insulation coating came off. He struck a blow against the tiles of the thermo-protective shell of the left wing of Columbia. But NASA experts did not consider this circumstance a serious incident that could somehow change the flight plan or put the lives of the crew members in jeopardy. But in the future this episode was considered as one of the versions of the causes of the catastrophe.

Flight

As part of the flight, the team as a whole coped with all the tasks set, which included more than 80 different scientific experiments. The expedition lasted 15 days and 22 hours. This is the standard time for the flight of ships of the shuttle class. During this time, Columbia made 255 turns around the Earth with a total length of about 1,600,000 km. The flight was made around the Earth in an orbit 307 km high.

On February 1, 2003, after completing all tasks, the landing procedure of the shuttle began at the scheduled time.

Catastrophe

How did the catastrophe of the Columbia shuttle happen?

At 8:10 am North American Eastern Time, the Central Flight Control (MCC) allows the shuttle Columbia team to begin the procedure for landing the spacecraft. Five minutes later, the engines of the orbital maneuvering system are launched, which were supposed to provide descent. Half an hour later, "Columbia" entered the dense layers of the Earth's atmosphere.

At 8:48 the temperature sensor of the left wing observes an abnormal increase in the thermal indices for such descents. But the data for some reason was not transferred to the PCO or brought to the screens of the on-board computer. The only source from which we now know about the rise in temperature is the "black box".

At 8:53 from the shuttle begins to fall off debris. And only a minute later the MCC sensors showed an abnormal change in the parameters. Periodically, around Columbia, observers observe bright light flashes.

At 8:58 from the ship fell off heat insulation tiles. At 8:59 the last communication with the commander of the shuttle is cut off. At 9:00 am, "Columbia" in the sky is falling apart. At 09:05, the debris of the shuttle fell to the ground in the US state of Texas.

That's it, a brief list of events, the completion of which was the catastrophe of the Columbia shuttle. In this tragedy, none of the crew members survived the chance.

After the disaster

After that wreck, when in general terms it was already possible to assess the scale of what happened, on February 1, 2003 at 11:00 all flags were omitted from the Space Center. Two and a half hours later, an official announcement of the accident occurred. The tragedy of the Columbia shuttle caused the US President George W. Bush to address the people at 13:05 on the same day. He expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, and also paid tribute to the heroism of the crew members.

Immediately after the crash, the search for the remains of the ship began. Officially, they were attended by more than 500 people. The search was complicated by the fact that parts of the shuttle were scattered over a fairly large area, covering the states of Texas, Louisiana, California, Arizona. A total of about 12,000 debris were found. In particular, it was found a device that replaces the black box.

The remains of all the crew members were found.

Investigation of the causes and conclusions

Initially, several causes of the catastrophe were considered, but the possibility of the terrorist attack was immediately ruled out, as it was virtually impossible to technically accomplish it. Although at one time the Internet was even spread the version that the crash of the shuttle occurred due to the introduction of a computer virus into the shuttle system. But this version could not withstand any criticism.

In the course of the investigation, the investigation rejected three versions, previously included in the core. According to one of them, the crash occurred as a result of the "aging" of the shuttle's design. According to another version, the cause of the accident was too steep and sharp entrance to the atmosphere of the shuttle. On the third - the catastrophe happened due to the failure of the braking system. But, as mentioned above, over time, for various reasons, these assumptions were abandoned.

There remained two main versions. According to one of them, the collapse was due to damage to the thermal insulation coating, which happened even at the start of the shuttle. For the second, the damage to the thermal coating occurred already in space due to the meteorite.

The final conclusion, which was read out in August 2003, indicated that the disaster occurred due to the destruction of the left wing of the shuttle with hot gases penetrating into its cavity due to damage to the thermal insulation.

Effects

The main consequences of the tragedy were the increased attention of NASA staff to the safety of spacecraft and crews on them. This thesis was especially detailed at the very end of 2008 in a special report by NASA.

The catastrophe of the shuttle Columbia, the crash of the shuttle Challenger in 1986, as well as numerous malfunctions during subsequent flights, forced NASA to curtail the Space Shuttle program in 2011.

Memory

At the same time, the memory of the hero-astronauts who were members of the shuttle crew still lives today.

One of the Swiss rock bands in 2005 released a song that was dedicated to this catastrophe. And two years before, the participant of the popular British band Deep Purple recorded a song-dedication, the right to which he gave to the relatives of the dead astronauts.

Also in honor of the shuttle was named one of the supercomputers, which is used in NASA - Columbia. One of the tops of Mount Kit Carson in Colorado was named Columbia Point.

The significance of the disaster

The catastrophe of the Columbia shuttle became a significant phenomenon in American society. It showed the unreliability of the shuttles and the entire flight system, which at that time was used by NASA.

It was this catastrophe that was one of the reasons that raised the issue of shutting down the Space Shuttle program.