![]() Additionally, a selection of NASA astronauts fly aboard Soyuz spacecraft that are managed by Russia's space agency, Roscosmos. The agency gives contractors for its International Space Station commercial crew program ( SpaceX and Boeing) more oversight of their own spacecraft, for example. (Image credit: Nasa)Īt NASA today, the environment surrounding crewed missions is complex in a different way, Logsdon said. 28, 1986 was in the mind of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which noted similar organizational difficulties at NASA that contributed to the two tragedies. Logsdon recalled fellow board member and former NASA astronaut Sally Ride, who had served on the board investigating Challenger as well, telling her fellow CAIB members that she heard "echoes of Challenger" in Columbia's demise.Īn entire chapter in Volume 1 of CAIB compares the various causes of the two accidents, opening with a statement saying the Columbia board saw "unfortunate similarities between the agency's performance and safety practices in both periods" prior to the two shuttle tragedies. ![]() ![]() Space historian John Logsdon served on CAIB and told that, in his view, several of the problems identified in the Challenger space shuttle's fatal accident of 1986, which killed seven astronauts, recurred during Columbia.Ĭhallenger's demise resulted from an explosion during launch due to the failure of a key part in a solid rocket booster, known as an O-ring, but schedule pressure and other organizational problems played a role as well. Shown here is a reconstruction of the space shuttle inside a facility with all the found pieces, to determine what caused its breakup on Feb. Yet little follow-through occurred with either the request for imagery, or the debris assessment team analysis."ĭebris from space shuttle Columbia was collected and analyzed from across the southern United States. They even identified as a critical impact zone. "Here, all the key managers were asking the right question and admitting the danger. "Mission managers understood that the relevant question was not whether foam posed a safety-of-flight issue - it did - but rather whether the observed foam strike contained sufficient kinetic energy to cause damage that could lead to a burn-through," CAIB wrote in the second volume of its report. Department of Defense for high-resolution "spy satellite" imagery of the affected area, but rescinded it within 90 minutes, CAIB analysis determined. NASA had also issued a brief request to the U.S. Related: Space shuttle Columbia's final mission (STS-107) in photosįoam shedding had happened numerous times before during shuttle launches, even though the shuttle system wasn't designed to do it CAIB officials suggested foam loss occurred on more than 80% of 79 missions "for which imagery was available to confirm or rule out foam loss."ĭuring Columbia's final flight, NASA engineers knew the foam had struck the shuttle's wing and several "debris assessment" meetings were held, according to CAIB documentation (opens in new tab) based on a series of interviews and agency e-mails obtained by board members. "Too often, accident investigations blame a failure only on the last step in a complex process, when a more comprehensive understanding of that process could reveal that earlier steps might be equally or even more culpable." ![]() "It is our view that complex systems almost always fail in complex ways, and we believe it would be wrong to reduce the complexities and weaknesses associated with these systems to some simple explanation," CAIB members wrote in their introduction (opens in new tab) to the first volume. The falling foam caused a breach in the re-entry protection system needed to protect the crew as the shuttle came back into Earth's atmosphere.Īssociated with that technical issue was a series of related organizational problems such as a lack of vision, immense schedule pressure for launches, budget constraints and cutbacks to the agency's workforce, CAIB investigations found. 16, striking the leading edge of Columbia's left wing. Those causes are detailed in a six-volume report (opens in new tab) issued by the independent Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) later in 2003.Īccording to that board, the primary technical cause of the incident was a piece of foam insulation that fell loose from a "bipod" (shuttle attachment) region of the external fuel tank during the flight's launch on Jan. Like all spacecraft accidents, the root causes of Columbia's and its crew's demise were complex.
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