Space Shuttle Columbia was the primary shuttle to achieve space when it was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Apr. 12, 1981.
Columbia carried dozens of astronauts into space throughout the subsequent 20 years, reaching a number of milestones. The shuttle additionally underwent upgrades as expertise superior.
Space Shuttle Columbia’s ultimate mission led to catastrophe. The shuttle and seven-member crew had been misplaced over Texas when Columbia burned up throughout re-entry on Feb 1, 2003. Columbia’s loss prompted NASA to do further security checks in orbit for all future missions.
Related: Columbia Disaster: What happened and what NASA learned
Space shuttle: Decades of growth
Discussions on creating a reusable spacecraft started in earnest in 1966, when NASA was wanting to determine what applications would come after Apollo. While NASA was tasked with starting the work, growth was held off for years by budgetary constraints, in response to NASA history documents.
Work resumed extra critically when the primary touchdown on the moon was imminent, in 1969. At that point, then-President Richard Nixon appointed a Space Task Group to have a look at future space choices, and in subsequent years NASA started awarding design contracts for shuttle concepts.
However, in response to NASA historical past paperwork, when NASA submitted its September 1970 finances to the White House, it turned clear that the Nixon administration and Congress wouldn’t help the event of a space station and space shuttle on the similar time. So NASA was pressured to rethink its expectations and make some modifications to scale back prices.
Space Shuttle Columbia: Key information
– First flight: STS-1 (Apr. 12 -14, 1981)
– Last flight: STS-107 (Jan. 16, 2003 – Feb. 1, 2003)
– Number of missions: 28
– Time in space: 300 days, 17 hours, 40 minutes, 22 seconds (Source: CBS)
Some compromises had been made within the design in response to budgetary constraints and enter from the navy, which was anticipated to be a significant buyer of the shuttle. For instance, the dimensions of the cargo bay was elevated to accommodate giant navy satellites. Also, it was determined to make the shuttle solely partially reusable as an alternative of absolutely reusable to save lots of on growth prices, though critics famous this might improve the prices of particular person flights in response to NASA historical past paperwork.
Construction started on a prototype on Jun. 4, 1974. That spacecraft was designated Enterprise. Its goal was to carry out check flights and landings, Space Shuttle Enterprise by no means flew into outer space. Construction on Space Shuttle Columbia started on Mar. 27, 1975.
The Space Shuttle Columbia was named after the primary American ship to circumnavigate the globe and in addition the command module for the Apollo 11 moon touchdown according to NASA.
Space Shuttle Columbia flight milestones
Space Shuttle Columbia’s first flight into space passed off on Apr. 12, 1981, in response to NASA. The shuttle program was formally known as the Space Transportation System (STS), so this flight was STS-1. The mission had a two-person crew: the commander, John Young, a veteran of Gemini and Apollo, and the pilot, Bob Crippen. The goal was to guarantee that Columbia labored properly in space. Media consideration, specifically, centered on the brand new system of 30,000 particular person tiles overlaying the shuttle, which NASA had struggled with throughout the early days, in response to NASA historical past paperwork.
Columbia returned from its first mission safely and a number of other extra check flights ran between 1981 and 1982. This included maybe probably the most dramatic touchdown of the shuttle program, STS-3. An “autoland” system malfunctioned earlier than touchdown on STS-3; the crew took over (as deliberate) simply earlier than touchdown, however the shuttle touched the runway sooner than regular. After touchdown, Columbia’s nostril pitched up unexpectedly as a consequence of a software program downside, in response to commander Jack Lousma’s oral history with NASA.
Space Shuttle Columbia’s first operational flight was STS-5, when it launched on Nov. 11, 1982, and deployed two industrial communications satellites, in response to NASA.
The first operational flight for Columbia was STS-5 in November 1982. NASA’s shuttle Challenger then took on the subsequent three flights, after which Columbia flew once more in November 1983 (STS-9), carrying the Spacelab experiment module for the primary time in addition to the primary European Space Agency astronaut Ulf Merbold of Germany, in response to NASA.
Columbia was then shelved for main upgrades (together with including heads-up shows) earlier than flying on only one mission in 1986; that mission carried Democrat Bill Nelson on board, among the many astronauts. Shuttle operations had been interrupted by the Space Shuttle Challenger catastrophe in January 1986. It would not be till 1989 that Columbia flew once more.
Related: In photos: NASA’s first space shuttle flight, STS-1 on Columbia
Space Shuttle Columbia Science and telescope operations
Columbia flew 28 missions in its lifetime, logging greater than 300 days in space. In its earliest days, it participated in repairing and deploying satellites and telescopes, however as NASA’s priorities modified to science, Columbia flew a number of productive science missions within the Nineteen Nineties and 2000s.
Over the years it flew a number of microgravity laboratory missions and on Feb. 22, 1996, launched on mission STS-75 with a tethered satellite system experiment. The mission was designed to hold the Tethered Satellite System Reflight (TSS-1R) into orbit after which deploy it from a tether, according to ESA. However, the tether broke earlier than it had reached the specified distance of 12.9 miles (20.7 km), in response to ESA.
In 1999 and 2002, although, Columbia shifted operations again into telescope operations. STS-93 was scheduled to fly on Jul. 20, 1999, to send the Chandra X-Ray Observatory into space.
According to NASA, a suspected hydrogen downside scrubbed the initial launch solely seven seconds earlier than liftoff, however upon additional examination, NASA decided that the excessive readings had been false.
Columbia lifted off on the Chandra X-ray Observatory mission (STS-93) on Jul. 23, 1999, however its orbit was seven miles shallower than deliberate as a consequence of a barely early major engine cutoff, in response to NASA. Adjustments in orbit had been essential to convey Columbia to the right altitude and the crew efficiently deployed Chandra throughout the mission.
Space Shuttle Columbia’s final successful mission was the Hubble Space Telescope Servicing mission — STS-109 when Columbia launched on Mar. 1, 2002.
Columbia’s mission included 5 spacewalks to service the Hubble Space Telescope; the place astronauts changed an getting older energy management unit, eliminated and put in solar arrays and carried out science instrument upgrades. Servicing time hit a report, on the time, of 35 hours and 55 minutes, breaking the earlier report of 35 hours and 28 minutes set by Hubble’s first servicing mission STS-61, in response to NASA.
This can be Columbia’s next-to-last mission in orbit, though no one knew it on the time.
The Columbia catastrophe
Space Shuttle Columbia’s ultimate flight was STS-107, a virtually 16-day analysis mission specializing in scientific experiments. The STS-107 crew included the primary Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, and the primary Indian-born lady in space, Kalpana Chawla.
On Feb. 1, 2003, NASA misplaced contact with Space Shuttle Columbia throughout the ultimate minutes of its re-entry over Texas.
Controllers spent a number of minutes making an attempt to hail the shuttle because the households of the astronauts waited on the anticipated touchdown web site on the Kennedy Space Center.
As the communications blackout lengthened, and video footage emerged of a giant flying object breaking into pieces, it turned clear that the crew had not survived.
According to a crew survival report launched by NASA in 2008, the crew seemingly lived via the preliminary breakup however fell unconscious quickly because the cabin depressurized. They died because the shuttle broke up round them. According to the crew survival report, their stays had been retrieved from the bottom and recognized via DNA and dental data.
Space Shuttle Columbia’s ultimate crew
Commander: Rick Husband
Pilot: Willie McCool
Payload Commander: Michael Anderson
Mission Specialists: Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark
Payload Specialist: Ilan Ramon
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board was fashioned to have a look at the causes of the breakup and to forestall it from taking place once more. Harold W. Gehman Jr., former commander-in-chief of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, chaired the board. It included participation from a dozen folks, together with NASA officers and former astronaut Sally Ride, who was additionally a member of Challenger’s investigation.
The board concluded {that a} piece of froth from Columbia’s exterior tank hit the shuttle throughout launch and induced a deadly breach in Columbia’s wing. This “foam debris” problem was well-known and documented within the years earlier than Columbia’s launch, however over time NASA grew to just accept it as a part of spaceflight. The board beneficial this downside be addressed.
NASA made modifications to the exterior tank in addition to put in new security procedures for shuttle missions. Among them, on each spaceflight, the crew was required to spend several hours scanning the shuttle’s bottom for damaged tiles.
Forever remembered
NASA nonetheless remembers Space Shuttle Columbia, in addition to previous crews misplaced within the pursuit of spaceflight, on an annual Day of Remembrance each January. Several memorials have been devoted to the crew as properly. For instance, seven asteroids that orbit the sun between Mars and Jupiter had been named after the seven crew members of STS-107.
Visitors to the Kennedy Space Center can view particles from the Columbia mission (in addition to Challenger) at an exhibit called “Forever Remembered,” which opened in 2015. The particles is on show on the customer’s middle and exhibits window frames from Columbia, in addition to private artifacts from the astronauts. The households of the astronauts collaborated on creating the exhibit.
Meanwhile, among the experiments from Columbia’s final flight returned helpful information. This included a set of roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans) that survived re-entry and successfully reproduced. Some of the descendants flew in space aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in May 2011.
