Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster

The quadriceps snort capital of South Carolina was the second seat move disaster and the first boo anomic on land happened on February 1, 2003. In this commission, six American cosmonauts and Israels first spaceman died when the space bird capital of South Carolina disintegrated 200,000ft above Texas. They ar David Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, William McCool and Ilan Ramon. Rick husband is the Columbias commander was a US air force colonel recruited to the space program in 1994. He make his first f dead in 1999 last weeks was his second.William McCool is the Columbia pi shell out was on his first flight. A naval commander and test pilot, he was selected for the space program in April 1996, and trained at the Johnson space centre. Michael Anderson is one of and a handful of African-American astronauts, Anderson had logged 211 hours in space before the Columbia disaster. A USAF lieutenant-colonel, he joined Nasa in 1994. Kalpana Chaw la is an experienced astronaut who do her first flight on STS-87 in 1997. David Brown was a military flight surgeon before joining the astronaut corps.Laurel Clark joined Nasa in the same year as Brown, and was trained as a space flight surgeon. Lastly is the Ilan Ramon, an Israeli air force colonel, Ramon was his countrys first astronaut. He took part in the 1973 Yom Kippur war and the 1981 bombing raid that destroy an Iraqi nuclear reactor. With the Columbia accident, non only has the nation incapacitated a four-billion-dollar fowl, septenary outstanding astronauts and pr water iceless experimental results, it has also lost confidence in manned space flight and space exploration. February 1, 2003 was a sunny day.It was the perfect day for the Columbia fowl return to soil. Everyone at NASA was excited for their return because the shuttle would bring back a lot of useful information from the 16 days mission. No one surmise tragedy will happen. At around 9am, the shuttle lost satisfy with NASA. The mission controllers thought it was a temporary problem because of the shuttle reentry into the automated teller ma lifte and also the temperature sensors on the inboard and outboard elevons (A control surface on an airplane that combines the functions of an elevator and an aileron. on the left propagation had stopped mental process minutes before. NASA start to recognize something unusual happened when several 911 calls were made by the residents in Texas, Arkansas and the Louisiana argona. The space shuttle Columbia and her seven crewmembers were lost. Immediately after losing of the shuttle and the seven crewmembers, NASA stopped all shuttle operations at Kennedy Space concentre. They collected all the re briny(prenominal)s spell of the Columbia shuttle and grid on the floor of the Reusable propel Vehicle Hangar.The Columbia Reconstruction Project Team attempted to regenerate the bottom of the artificial satellite as part of the investigation into the accident. The engineers found that a 20-inch piece of hardened insulation spark breaking off the main fuel cooler and hitting the shuttles left annex during the launch on January 16th. They asked the top shuttle managers for outside agency assistance, and the request was denied. This is because the shuttle managers concluded that there was no safety anguish due to the foams impact and decided to let the mission continue. Other possible causes were pilot mistake and space debris.After investigations continued in the next few weeks, some molten aluminum debris from the shuttles file name extension structure, as well as molten sword debris, had been found. When the engineers eliminated the other possibilities, they began to focus on the foam from the outside(a) tank only. When the shuttle reenters the atmosphere, the temperature on its surface can reach nearly 1649oC. So the thermic Protection System (Various materials applied to the outer structure protect the orbiter from e xcessive heat) on the shuttle is critical. There atomic number 18 four assorted materials in the space shuttles Thermal Protection System (TPS).There are high-temperature reclaimable surface insulation (HRSI) , low-temperature reusable surface insulation (LRSI), felt reusable surface insulation(FRSI), and reinforced carbon-carbon composite (RCC). The HRSI cover the high surface temperature reaches between 649 and 1260oC. The LRSI cover the low surface temperature reaches between 371 and 649oC. For another 2 materials are used in small amounts. Due to the temperature during reentry exceeds 1260oC at the nose cap, chin panel, forward external tank, and file name extension leading boundary panels and T-seals, the RCC was break down.For utilize purpose and to prevent oxidation, the outer layer of the RCC is converted into silicon carbide in a furnace filled with argon with a temperature cycle up to 1649oC. The main reason of the shuttle to break down is because the foam from the b ipod of the external tank was shed, and struck the shuttles left wing during the launch. It had damaged the wings leading edge RCC structures which allowing reentry plasma to penetrate and disintegrate the be aluminum, damaging the wings structure.The foam of the bipod ramp is BX-250, polyurethane foam applied with CCF-11 which is used to cover outside of the tank to prevent ice and frost on the surface. The foam is to reduce the weight so it made by light material. The engineers couldnt believe that such a light material could damage the wing of the shuttle. Thus, some research had done by the Southwest Research institute. They used a compressed air hoagy to fire a foam draw a blank of similar size and wad to that which struck Columbia and at same estimated speed.To represent the leading edge of Columbias left wing, RCC panels from Enterprise and from NASA stock, along with fiberglass mock-up panels, were mounted to a simulating structural metal frame. In the final round of test ing, a block fired at the side of an RCC panel created a hole 41 by 42. 5 centimeters (16 by 17 in) in the protective RCC panel. The tests clearly show that the foam could cause visible crack on the well-tried RCC panels. These cracks could lead the shuttle breakup during reentry. The final propound of the Columbia diagonal Investigation was released on August 26th, 2003.It concluded that this tragedy was caused by expert and organizational failures. The foam problem of the bipod area has existed for years, and NASA engineers have looked at a variety of ways to correct it. The report indicated that the space shuttle should not have been launched with this problem extant. The report further proposed that, although the shuttle had always returned to earth safely after the foam hit the wing during previous shuttle flights, the managers at NASA should not have rejected the engineers requests to make sure Columbias wing was not damaged this time.Finally, it suggested that NASA shoul d have had a backup plan for habitue the shuttle in space and insuring the crews safety if they found out the wing was badly damaged. On 26th July 2005, a shuttle discovery was launched. NASA had organise an independent Return to Flight (RTF) panel to monitor its preparations. There are 7 out of the 26 RTF panel members issued a minority report prior to the launch. They questioning if Columbias lessons had been learned and also expressing concerns nearly NASAs efforts.During launch, a large piece of foam separated from the external fuel tank, but fortunately did not strike the shuttle, which landed safely 14 days later. The shuttle fleet was once again grounded, unfinished resolution of the problem with the external fuel tank insulating foam. Reference Columbia space shuttle disaster 2003. World news. http//www. guardian. co. uk/gall/0,,888045,00. html Space shuttles thermal protection system (TPS). US Centennial of Flight Commission. http//www. centennialofflight. ov/ endeavor/ Evolution_of_Technology/TPS/Tech41G2. htm Final report of Columbia Disaster. Columbia Accident Investigation plank http//caib. nasa. gov/ NASAs Space Shuttle Program The Columbia Tragedy, the Discovery Mission, and the in store(predicate) of the Shuttle. Marcia S. Smith Resources, Science, and Industry Division. Updated by January 4, 2006. fas. org/sgp/crs/space/RS21408. pdf Lessons Learned from the Columbia Disaster. Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS). www. aiche. org/uploadedFiles/CCPS/ /Presentation_Rev_newv4. ppt