The ill fated flight of Columbia Shuttle - Space Shuttle Columbia Documentary

The Space Shuttle Columbia catastrophe occurred on February 1, 2003, when Columbia disintegrated over Texas as well as Louisiana as it reentered Planet's setting, eliminating all 7 crew members. During the launch of STS-107, Columbia's 28th mission, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the Space capsule exterior storage tank and struck the left wing. A few previous shuttle bus launches had seen small harm from foam losing, yet some designers thought that the damage to Columbia was more serious. NASA managers restricted the investigation, thinking that the team could possibly not have actually taken care of the issue if it had actually been validated. When Columbia reentered the setting of Planet, the damage allowed warm atmospherical gases to pass through as well as damage the interior wing framework, which triggered the spacecraft to become unsteady as well as gradually disintegrate. After the catastrophe, Space Shuttle flight procedures were suspended for more than 2 years, just like the aftermath of the Challenger disaster. Building of the International Space Station (ISS) was postponed; the terminal depended completely on the Russian Federal Space Firm for resupply for 29 months till Shuttle bus air travels resumed with STS-114 as well as 41 months for crew rotation till STS-121. A number of technological and organizational modifications were made, consisting of including a complete on-orbit assessment to figure out how well the shuttle's thermal protection system had endured the ascent, and also maintaining a marked rescue mission ready in case irreparable damage was found. Other than one last objective to repair the Hubble Room Telescope, succeeding objectives were flown only to the ISS so that the staff might utilize it as a sanctuary in case damage to the orbiter stopped safe reentry.