Space Shuttle Columbia

Space Shuttle Columbia (NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-102) was the first space shuttle in NASA's orbital fleet. Its first mission, STS-1, lasted from April 12 to April 14, 1981. On February 1, 2003, Columbia disintegrated during re-entry on its 28th mission; all seven crew members aboard perished (see Space Shuttle Columbia disaster).

History

Construction began on Columbia in 1975 primarily in Palmdale, California. Columbia was named after the Boston-based sloop Columbia captained by American Robert Gray, who explored the Pacific Northwest and became the first American vessel to circumnavigate the world; the name also honored Columbia, the Command Module of Apollo 11. After construction, the orbiter arrived at John F. Kennedy Space Center on March 25, 1979, to prepare for its first launch. On March 19, 1981, during preparations for a ground test, five workers were asphyxiated during a nitrogen purge, resulting in two deaths. Columbia has always been referred to as the flagship of the shuttle fleet.

The first flight of Columbia (STS-1) was commanded by John Young (a space veteran from the Gemini and Apollo eras) and piloted by Robert Crippen, a rookie who had never been in space before, but who served as a support crew member for the Skylab missions and Apollo-Soyuz. It launched April 12, 1981, and returned April 14, 1981, after orbiting the earth 36 times.

In 1983, Columbia undertook its second operational mission (STS-9) with 6 astronauts, including the first non-American astronaut on a space shuttle, Ulf Merbold. On January 12, 1986, Columbia took off with the first Hispanic American astronaut, Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz, as well as the first sitting member of the House of Representatives in space, Bill Nelson. Another first was announced on March 5, 1998 when NASA named U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins as commander of a future Columbia mission — making Collins the first female commander of a space shuttle mission.

Prototype orbiter

Columbia, unlike her operational sister ships, was built with the technologies that were available at the time of her construction in Palmdale in the mid-1970's. One major difference between Columbia and later shuttles was the use of heavier-weight spars in the orbiter's wings and fuselage. Thus, despite improvements over the course of her lifetime, Columbia would never weigh as little unloaded as the orbiters in the current fleet (Challenger, despite improvements during her conversion from the Structural Test Article into an operational orbiter, was also heavy, although it was 2,200 lb. lighter).

Externally, Columbia was the only orbiter in the fleet that originally had an all-tile thermal protection system (TPS). The all-tile TPS would later be modified to incorporate felt insulation blankets on the fuselage and upper wing surfaces — work that was performed during Columbia's first retrofitting and the post-Challenger stand-down. Also unique to Columbia were the black "chines" on the shuttle's upper wing surfaces. These black areas were part of Columbia's wing design to distinguish it from Enterprise, and also because the first shuttle's designers did not know how reentry heating would affect the craft's upper wing surfaces.

Until its last refit, Columbia was the only operational orbiter with wing markings consisting of an American flag on the left wing and the letters "USA" on the right. From its last refit to its destruction, Columbia bore markings identical to those of its sister orbiters — the NASA "meatball" logo on the left wing and the American flag and "Columbia" designation on the right. Many NASA employees and nostalgic space buffs were upset the historical markings were removed, but the procedure was insisted upon by NASA Administrator Dan Goldin.

Another unique external feature, termed the "SILTS" pod, was located on the top of Columbia's tailfin, and was installed after STS-9 to acquire infrared and other thermal data. Though the pod's equipment was removed after initial tests, NASA decided to leave it in place, as the agency had plans to use it for future experiments. The tailfin was later modified to incorporate the drag chute first used on Endeavour in 1992.

Internally, Columbia was originally fitted with Lockheed-Martin-built ejection seats identical to those found on the SR-71 Blackbird. These seats were active on the initial series of orbital test flights, but were deactivated after STS-4 and were removed entirely after STS-9. Columbia was also the only orbiter not delivered with heads-up displays for the pilot and copilot, although these were incorporated after STS-9. Like its sister ships, Columbia was eventually retrofitted (at its last refit) with the new MEDS "glass cockpit" display and lightweight seats. Unlike the other orbiters, Columbia retained an internal airlock, but was fitted to accept the external airlock and docking adapter needed for flights to the International Space Station. This retention of an internal airlock allowed NASA to use Columbia for the STS-109 Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, along with the Spacehab double module used on STS-107. If Columbia had not been destroyed, it would have been fitted with a space station docking adapter for mission STS-118, an International Space Station assembly mission, in November, 2003.

After the STS-118 mission, Columbia's career would have started to wind down. It was planned to service the HST two more times, one in 2004, and again in 2005, but no more missions were planned for it again until 2009, when on STS-144, it would recover the Hubble Space Telescope from orbit and bring it back down to Earth safely. It should be noted, however, that the shuttle manifest changed all the time, so it is almost 100% likely Columbia still would have flown during that 2005-2009 timeframe.

Final mission

Main articles: STS-107, Space Shuttle Columbia disaster

On its final mission, the craft was carrying the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, and the first female astronaut of Indian birth, Kalpana Chawla. Other crew members on the final flight included Rick Husband (commander), Willie McCool (pilot), Michael P. Anderson, Laurel B. Clark, and David M. Brown.

On the morning of February 1, 2003, the shuttle re-entered the atmosphere after a 16-day scientific mission. NASA lost radio contact at about 0900. EST, only minutes before the expected 0916 landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Video recordings show the craft breaking up in flames over Texas, at an altitude of approximately 39 miles (63 km) and a speed of 12,500 mph (5.6 km/s).

In the months following the tragedy, NASA scientists determined that a hole was punctured in the leading edge on one of Columbia's wings, made of a carbon-carbon composite. The hole had formed when a piece of insulating foam from the external fuel tank peeled off during the launch 16 days earlier, puncturing the edge of the wing. Hot gases, inaccurately described in initial reports as plasma ^*, penetrated the interior of the wing, destroying the support structure and causing the rest of the shuttle to break apart during the intense heat of re-entry.

The collected debris of the vessel is currently stored on the 16th floor of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center; recovered items are occasionally loaned for research into the hypersonic flight regime. Former NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe vowed that Columbia will not be sealed away as the debris from the Challenger was. The debris from Challenger is permanently entombed in two Minuteman missile silos at KSC.

Flights

Space Shuttle Columbia flew 28 flights, spent 300.74-days in space, completed 4,808 orbits, and flew 125,204,911 miles in total, including its final mission.

Date	Designation	Notes
1981 April 12	STS-1	First Shuttle mission
1981 November 12	STS-2	First re-use of manned space vehicle
1982 March 22	STS-3	Landed White Sands Missile Range
1982 June 27	STS-4	Last shuttle R&D flight
1982 November 11	STS-5	First 4 person crew, first deployment of commercial satellite
1983 November 28	STS-9	First 6 person crew. 1st Spacelab.
1986 January 12	STS-61-C	Representative Bill Nelson (D-FL) on board/ final successful shuttle flight before Challenger disaster
1989 August 8	STS-28	Launched KH-11 reconnaissance satellite
1990 January 9	STS-32	Retrieved Long Duration Exposure Facility
1990 December 2	STS-35	Carried multiple X-ray & UV telescopes
1991 June 5	STS-40	5th Spacelab - Life Sciences-1
1992 June 25	STS-50	U.S. Microgravity Laboratory 1 (USML-1)
1992 October 22	STS-52	Deployed Laser Geodynamic Satellite II
1993 April 26	STS-55	German Spacelab D-2 Microgravity Research
1993 October 18	STS-58	Spacelab Life Sciences
1994 March 4	STS-62	United States Microgravity Payload-2 (USMP-2)
1994 July 8	STS-65	International Microgravity Laboratory (IML-2)
1995 October 20	STS-73	United States Microgravity Laboratory (USML-2)
1996 February 22	STS-75	Tethered Satellite System Reflight (TSS-1R)
1996 June 20	STS-78	Life and Microgravity Spacelab (LMS)
1996 November 19	STS-80	3rd flight of Wake Shield Facility (WSF)/ longest Shuttle flight as of 2006
1997 April 4	STS-83	Microgravity Science Laboratory (MSL)- cut short
1997 July 1	STS-94	Microgravity Science Laboratory (MSL)- reflight
1997 November 19	STS-87	United States Microgravity Payload (USMP-4), Kalpana Chawla becomes first Indian-born astronaut to fly on the space shuttle
1998 April 13	STS-90	Neurolab - Spacelab
1999 July 23	STS-93	Deployed Chandra X-ray Observatory
2002 March 1	STS-109	Hubble Space Telescope service mission (HSM-3B)
2003 January 16	STS-107	A multi-disciplinary microgravity and Earth science research mission. Shuttle destroyed during re-entry on February 1, 2003 and all seven astronauts on board killed. Hundreds of the nematode worms onboard for research survived.

Trivia

Columbia flight STS-75 was the first to take the Linux operating system into orbit.
The song Countdown by Rush from the 1982 album Signals was written by drummer Neil Peart about the inagural Space Shuttle flight of Columbia. The song was "dedicated with thanks to astronauts Young & Crippen and all the people of NASA for their inspiration and cooperation". The song Red Sector A from their 1983 album Grace Under Pressure was named for the area in which the band witnessed the launch of Columbia on April 12th, 1981.
In the video games Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow for the Game Boy, Columbia can be found in the space museum in Pewter City, though following the disaster, the updated versions of the game have removed the Columbia and simply refer to it as "Space Shuttle"
In an episode of Cowboy Bebop, the space shuttle Columbia was used to rescue a character from a disabled space vehicle in a decaying orbit around Earth. Its appearance is anachronistic, given that the show takes place in the far future, but the episode was made before the Columbia's disintegration.
In an episode of the animated Dilbert series, Dogbert is a passenger on the Columbia.
Shortly after the Columbia disaster, the television show Enterprise named the next NX Class starship after the Columbia.
In the 2006 film The Omen (2006 film), a picture of the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrating can be seen alongside itself taking off, the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the 2004 Tsunami.

Footnotes

The use of the word "plasma" to describe the gases that entered the wing is not technically accurate, according to NASA and Boeing aero-thermal engineers who support the Space Shuttle program at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. They pointed out during the Columbia accident investigations that atmospheric entry heating and its intrusion into damaged left wing was from superheated air, not ionized gas and not plasma.

External links

Columbia accident investigation board
Columbia Disaster Multi-Media
Columbia Loss FAQ
Space.com Columbia FAQ, compiled and modified (through April 2003) as facts became available
Orbiter Vehicles
Shuttle Orbiter Columbia (OV-102)
New York Times coverage of the shuttle
Scripting News' roundup of links about the shuttle
NVAR and TXAR Infrasound of Explosion of Space Shuttle Columbia

Manned spacecraft | Space program fatalities | Space Shuttles

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