As the spacecraft descended to Earth, travelling thousands of miles an hour, super-heated atmospheric gases rushed through the breach in the heat-resistant tiles. Only around 40% of the Shuttle has been recovered – the rest remains missing, 12 years later.īut what was recovered was enough to piece together the Shuttle’s final minutes.
Pieces were recovered from Texas and the neighbouring states of Louisiana and Arkansas. Nasa then carried out the largest-ever ground search ever undertaken, to try and find pieces of the Shuttle. There was a chilling silence for some 20 minutes before the truth dawned 38 miles above Texas, the Shuttle had broken apart, and all seven crew were dead. Just before 0900 EST, as the Shuttle re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere 200,000 feet above the United States, Mission Control suddenly lost contact. The crew carried out the subsequent mission unaware their return to Earth was already doomed. A piece of foam insulation the size of a briefcase fell off the spacecraft’s external fuel tank, cracking some of the heat-resistant tiles on the Shuttle’s left wing. Their fate had been sealed 16 days before, when the Shuttle lifted off from Cape Canaveral. Now, they donned their pressure suits and prepared for a return to Earth. The crew of seven – five men and two women – had carried out some 80 experiments during their time in Earth’s orbit. On 1 February 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia began its descent back to Earth after a 16-day mission.