The composition of the object is unknown, but it was lightweight and not dense, Deal said. "It was something that more than likely came loose," Deal said. It was within 50 feet of the shuttle and, within that first day, started separating farther and farther away until it burned up on re-entry three days later, he said. He described the object as about 1 foot by 1.3 feet in size and said it was flying in tandem with Columbia one day into the mission. "It could have been something loose that separated, it could have been something inside the payload bay." It also could have been part of the left wing, where all the overheating and other troubles developed during re-entry. "You or I could invent a dozen scenarios," Deal said. Duane Deal, a board member, discounted both possibilities Tuesday and said the object almost had to have come from the shuttle itself. Initially, NASA said it suspected the object might be frozen waste water dumped overboard or an orbiting piece of space junk that the shuttle happened to encounter.īut Air Force Brig. After the shuttle's destruction over Texas, just 16 minutes short of its planned Florida landing, the Air Force Space Command began analyzing radar data and noticed the object. The object orbiting near Columbia was never noticed during the flight. The investigative board suspects a breach in the left wing allowed superheated gases to penetrate Columbia.Įarlier Tuesday, the accident investigators said they want to know more about a mysterious object that almost certainly fell off the shuttle and was flying alongside the spacecraft during its second day in orbit. The pain is horrible."Īll seven astronauts died as the shuttle broke apart during re-entry on Feb. There have been times through this that I don't think I can take it anymore. "But, I mean, the thing that has not failed," she said, "I have not felt hopelessness and I haven't felt that once and I'm being very honest about that and I'm very thankful for that. In an interview broadcast by CNN late Tuesday, Husband's widow, Evelyn, who is deeply religious, said her strength has failed her at times. Members of the board investigating the disaster knew about the videotape for the past several days but did not discuss it at the weekly news conference Tuesday afternoon, the official said, because they wanted to give NASA time to show it to the astronauts' families.
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