Disaster in Colombia: evidence tells the story of the tragic end of a space mission

TEXAS, USA. On January 16, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia set off on a scientific mission with seven astronauts on board.

Sixteen days later, the WFAA filmed his return live over Texas.

“There it goes. The bright light you see is obviously part of the heat-resistant material illuminating the shuttle,” said Brad Watson, a former WFAA reporter.

The shuttle was 16 minutes from landing in Florida. This never succeeded. Instead, our cameras captured the shuttle’s explosion.

“It looks like a normal re-entry because the shuttle usually catches fire due to the heat of re-entry, but if you notice here, it looks like parts of the shuttle are coming off,” Watson said.

At Mission Control in Houston, they realized that something had gone wrong.

“FYI, I lost four temperature sensors on the left side of the ship,” a NASA official said.

In other words, the thermal sensors have been triggered. Joe Guteinz is a former NASA investigator familiar with the Columbia University investigation.

“What was notable about this particular case is that the first indication that there was a problem with Columbia was that the temperature sensors were not working 100 percent,” said Joe Guteinz, a NASA researcher.

Back at Mission Control, they repeatedly tried to contact the astronauts but lost contact.

According to NASA, the last transmission from Colonel Rick Husband, minutes before his last words, was “Roger, uh.”

“It is believed that there were 60 to 90 seconds when the astronauts knew that something was going wrong,” Guteinz said.

NASA declared a state of emergency and sent search and rescue teams to East Texas when parts of the shuttle began to fall. The pieces fell over an area of ​​over 2,000 square miles.

Matt Orwig was U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas and helped lead the investigation. He says it was the largest crime scene and crime detection in US history, the largest and most complex investigation.

“At least 84,000 fragments have been recovered and put together to unravel the mystery of what caused the explosion,” Orvig said.

Initially, there were concerns that the explosion was intentional, as an Israeli astronaut was on board and the authorities feared he could be targeted, so they increased landing security.

“Most of all, during the landing, they were afraid of a possible terrorist attack, so during the landing they increased security measures in Florida,” Galius said.

“We were not far from 9/11, and so there was a consideration that it could be some kind of terrorist attack,” said Orvig.

NASA sought to recover as much of the shuttle as possible in order to determine the cause. Thousands of law enforcement officers and soldiers were called in to help recover the parts. While most people returned what they found, some residents wanted to keep it, and it was considered a crime.

“Many people naturally thought they should be able to keep it or wanted to keep it. We emphasized the importance,” said Orvig.

Several people were prosecuted for failing to turn over parts of the shuttle, and nearly 40 percent of it was eventually recovered, including the left wing.

The WFAA was there when the rancher found it.

The left wing was critical to the investigation because NASA ultimately determined that the thermal tiles on the wing had been damaged during takeoff.

“That left wing was actually hit by a piece of foam from the main tank, the piece that hit the orbiter weighed just under two pounds, white, so anything that touched the left wing was zero point in the investigation,” Guteinz said. .

Guteinz says NASA knew a piece of foam had hit the left wing on takeoff, but decided it wasn’t a problem. Even the WFAA hosts reported this within the first hour of our coverage.

“NASA said as early as Friday that the thermal tiles, the projection tiles that protect the shuttle from the incredible heat of reentry, that damage to the tiles was considered minor at the time and not a threat,” Galius said. .

“This is exactly what happened, a hole was created on impact, and this hole led to the destruction of the orbiter,” Guteinz said.

Among the items found were several videos from the orbiter, where the astronauts were preparing to enter the atmosphere. You can hear one of them say, “That’s very neat. It’s bright orange above the nose.”

You see them going through their latest checklists and looking beyond the orbiter.

“It’s amazing. It’s really light in there. Yeah, I definitely don’t want to be out there right now.

But in a few minutes they will all be dead. All the remains of the astronauts were discovered in East Texas.

“Every time they found the remains, they stopped and everything and were silent for a moment,” said Orvig.

Two decades later, the wreckage of the shuttle is still being found, reminiscent of this tragic historical event that took place in the skies of Texas.