The **Space Shuttle Columbia disaster** occurred when Space Shuttle *Columbia* broke up when it was reentering the atmosphere on February 1, 2003. The cause of the disaster was that a piece of foam broke from the external fuel tank. This made a hole in the shuttle's wing. During its entry, hot gases entered the wing, causing it to break up. All of the people on board died when it broke up.

Parts of *Columbia* were found across the state of Texas. The cockpit window is now inside the Space Shuttle *Atlantis* Pavilion at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Crew
----

* Commander: Rick D. Husband, a U.S. Air Force colonel and mechanical engineer
* Pilot: William C. McCool, a U.S. Navy commander
* Payload Commander: Michael P. Anderson, a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and physicist
* Payload Specialist: Ilan Ramon, a colonel in the Israeli Air Force
* Mission Specialist: Kalpana Chawla, an Indian-born aerospace engineer
* Mission Specialist: David M. Brown, a U.S. Navy captain and surgeon
* Mission Specialist: Laurel Blair Salton Clark, a U.S. Navy captain and surgeon

Launch & response
-----------------

*Columbia* launched on its final mission on January 16, 2003. It was *Columbia*'s 28th flight and the 113th of any Shuttle.

81 seconds into flight, a briefcase-sized part of the external fuel tank's foam insulation, which stops ice from forming while the very cold liquid fuel is in the tank, broke away and hit *Columbia*. Such debris strikes had happened before - in particular on STS-27 in which a piece of a booster's forward heat shield broke and hit *Atlantis*' bottom-side heat shield - and were seen as an acceptable risk. However, this debris strike hit *Columbia*'s left wing head on, punching a hole through the panels on the wing's forward edge.

Once high-quality video of the launch was ready, NASA reviewed it and concluded that everything was fine, and stopped engineers from using Department of Defense images from orbit to get a closer look. NASA management thought that even if something were wrong, it would be better for the crew not to know since rescue or repair would be nearly impossible. One flight director contacted *Columbia* about the concerns, but stressed "we have seen this same phenomenon on other flights and there is absolutely no concern for [re-]entry."

Failed re-entry
---------------

*Columbia* breaks apart in the atmosphere. Viewed from a Dutch helicopter operating near Fort Hood, Texas.
On February 1, *Columbia* prepared to return to Earth on a path that would take it over the USA from west to east. At 8:15 EST, about an hour before *Columbia* was due to land, it lit its engines and changed its course so that it would re-enter the atmosphere. A 13-minute video recorded in the cabin, ending eleven minutes before the loss of signal from *Columbia*, shows the astronauts in good spirits and unaware of the danger. As *Columbia* entered the atmosphere, the air heated up around it due to the Shuttle moving at extreme speeds, over twenty times the speed of sound. This air was able to enter the wing through the hole made during launch, melting through it and causing the Shuttle to lose lift on that side. This loss of lift caused the Shuttle to turn away from its re-entry path, tumble, and break up from the drag of the air.

*Columbia* passed over California at 8:53. Video shows flashes happening and an unusual trail left behind *Columbia*, which even hobbyist watchers saw as out of the ordinary. At this point, the temperature of the damaged part of the wing was around 3,000°F (1,650°C). By 8:58 *Columbia*, still moving at incredible speeds, crossed from New Mexico into Texas, at which point it began shedding debris. By this point several temperature sensors in the damaged left wing had stopped working, and one of the flight controllers reported that the tyre pressure sensors on that side were reporting "off scale low"- meaning that it is a reading that falls below the minimum capability of the sensor, and it usually indicates that the sensor has stopped functioning, due to internal or external factors, not that the quantity it measures is actually below the sensor's minimum response value. 

The last communication with commander Rick Husband was "*Roger, uh bu-*" at 8:59. 45 seconds later, video from the ground shows *Columbia* breaking apart. Mission Control began its disaster procedures at 9:12.

Related pages
-------------

* Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

| * v
* t
* e
Space Shuttle program |
| --- |
| 
* Space Shuttle
* List of missions
* List of crews

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| Components | 
* Orbiter
* Solid Rocket Booster
* External tank
* Main engine
* Orbital Maneuvering System
* Reaction control system
* Thermal protection system
* Booster separation motor

 |  |
| Orbiters | 
* *Enterprise*
* *Columbia*
* *Challenger*
* *Discovery*
* *Atlantis*
* *Endeavour*

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| Add-ons | 
* Spacelab (ESA)
* Canadarm (CSA)
* Extended Duration Orbiter
* Remote Controlled Orbiter
* Spacehab
* Multi-Purpose Logistics Module

 |
| Sites | 
* Launch Complex 39
	+ A
	+ B
* Space Launch Complex 6
* Landing sites
	+ Shuttle Landing Facility
	+ Abort landing sites

 |
| Operationsand training | 
* Missions (canceled)
* Crews
* Mission timeline
* Rollbacks
* Countdown
* Abort modes
* Rendezvous pitch maneuver
* Shuttle Mission Simulator
* Shuttle Training Aircraft

 |
| Testing | 
* *Inspiration* (design)
* *Pathfinder* (simulator)
* MPTA (engine test article)
* Approach and Landing Tests

 |
| Disasters | 
* *Challenger* disaster (report)
* *Columbia* disaster (report)

 |
| Support | 
* Crawler-transporter
* Mate-Demate Device
* Mobile Launcher Platform
* NASA recovery ship
* Orbiter Processing Facility
* Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL)
* Shuttle Carrier Aircraft
	+ flights
* Shuttle Training Aircraft
* STS-3xx

 |
| Special | 
* Deutschland-1
* Getaway Special
* Teacher in Space Project
* Shuttle-Mir
* Hitchhiker

 |
| Space suits | 
* Extravehicular Mobility Unit
* Shuttle Ejection Escape Suit
* Launch Entry Suit
* Advanced Crew Escape Suit

 |
| Experiments | 
* Freestar experiments
* Inflatable Antenna Experiment
* Spartan Packet Radio Experiment
* Shuttle pallet satellite
* Wake Shield Facility

 |
| Derivatives | 
* Saturn-Shuttle
* Magnum
* Shuttle-Derived Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle
* Jupiter
* Shuttle-C
* Ares
	+ I
	+ IV
	+ V
* Liberty
* Space Launch System
* OmegA

 |
| Replicas | 
* *Independence*

 |
| Related | 
* Space Shuttle design process
	+ studied designs
* Inertial Upper Stage
* Payload Assist Module
* International Space Station
* Criticism
* Retirement
* Conroy Virtus
* *Hail Columbia* (1982 documentary)
* *The Dream Is Alive* (1985 documentary)
* *Challenger* (1990 film)
* *Destiny in Space* (1994 documentary)
* *Columbia: The Tragic Loss* (2004 documentary)
* *Hubble* (2010 documentary)
* *The Challenger Disaster* (2013 film)
* *Challenger: The Final Flight* (2020 documentary miniseries)
* Space Shuttle America
* *Rendezvous: A Space Shuttle Simulation*
* *Space Shuttle Project*
* *Shuttle*
* *Space Shuttle: A Journey into Space*
* *Space Shuttle Mission 2007*
* *Orbiter Space Flight Simulator*
* *When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions*

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