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Sound waves from Columbia help investigators pin down timeline
Space Centre (Houston), Feb 17: Recordings made by instruments sensitive to sound below the threshold of human hearing may help investigators build a timeline of any uncharacteristic movements made by the space shuttle Columbia minutes before it broke apart, scientists say.
Space Centre (Houston), Feb 17: Recordings made by instruments sensitive to sound below the threshold of human hearing may help investigators build a timeline of any uncharacteristic movements made by the space shuttle Columbia minutes before it broke apart, scientists say.
The instruments also captured an explosion high over Texas that one scientist said could have been Columbia's cabin rupturing.
As parts of Columbia began to break off as the shuttle streaked across the west, the flight behaviour of the normally streamlined spacecraft would have changed. Those changes would have generated distinctly different patterns of sound waves compared to previous shuttle flights. The patterns, recorded on the ground by instruments in Texas, Nevada and elsewhere in the west, are now being examined as part of the Columbia disaster investigation.
Any abnormal patterns can help investigators establish the timing of events as the shuttle entered the earth's atmosphere February 1, said Keith Koper, a geophysicist at Saint Louis University in Missouri.
Investigators already know from sensor data sent from the shuttle in its final minutes- supported by eyewitness reports, photographs and video footage- that Columbia's cascade of problems began while the spacecraft was still over the pacific ocean. The sensors indicated increasing heat as well as increased drag on shuttle's left wing, suggesting it was somehow damaged, perhaps from the impact of a chunk of hard foam that broke off the external fuel tank and hit the wing shortly after liftoff January 16.
Bureau Report
As parts of Columbia began to break off as the shuttle streaked across the west, the flight behaviour of the normally streamlined spacecraft would have changed. Those changes would have generated distinctly different patterns of sound waves compared to previous shuttle flights. The patterns, recorded on the ground by instruments in Texas, Nevada and elsewhere in the west, are now being examined as part of the Columbia disaster investigation.
Any abnormal patterns can help investigators establish the timing of events as the shuttle entered the earth's atmosphere February 1, said Keith Koper, a geophysicist at Saint Louis University in Missouri.
Investigators already know from sensor data sent from the shuttle in its final minutes- supported by eyewitness reports, photographs and video footage- that Columbia's cascade of problems began while the spacecraft was still over the pacific ocean. The sensors indicated increasing heat as well as increased drag on shuttle's left wing, suggesting it was somehow damaged, perhaps from the impact of a chunk of hard foam that broke off the external fuel tank and hit the wing shortly after liftoff January 16.
Bureau Report