STS-107 - The Columbia Accident
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
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STS-107 - This video starts about 12 minutes before the de-orbit burn and runs through until just after the "Close the Doors" instruction by Leroy Cain. The film is made up of MCC video broacast on the day (audio is in right channel), Flight Directors Loop (in the left channel), the recovered film taken onboard Columbia (audio is in the left channel along with the FD Loop), simulator footage of the de-orbit burn and some of the re-entry, photos from the flight that were either recovered or transmitted to the ground during the mission, some photos taken of Columbia during the flight by long range ground cameras and footage of the destruction taken by amateur video operators and an Apache helicopter crew (footage taken from Chris Valentines excellent video timeline of the events).
I have tried to synch the video and audio from the three NASA sources and would guesstimate that I have gotten it as close as possible to real time, which, I felt, was very important for this video.
I would highly recommend listening to the audio with headphones or on well spaced apart speakers.
The video is dedicated to the crew of STS-107.
Thanks for reading this description - LM5
All photos/video/audio courtesy NASA unless stated otherwise.
1:05:32 "Columbia...Houston...Com check...!" followed by silence - chills me to the bone even now...
Me too. Everytime there's silence after "Houston, com check", I get chills.
"We haven't forgotten about you." ❤️
We never will.
It’s scary to think they were doomed at lift off.
As we are when born ... sad but true.
Had they taken photographs of the space shuttle itself, we would've known there was a hole on the left wing and we could've found some solutions to bring them back home safely. I truly believe in that. If you have a negative attitude from the start, you'll lose them...
Well more like 81 seconds after liftoff…
@@emily-clarkthats why it's never a good idea to put your life in someone else's hands if you can avoid it as we all know we only get one life. We don't know for sure what happened and why
@@emily-clarkDid they want to know?
It was Saturday morning in Tyler, Texas and My house shook and I heard three sonic booms like "boom.... Boom boom"....very loud. For some reason I thought... "was that a missile attack or something" and I looked out the front and back of my house to see if any mushroom clouds were visible and was glad I didn't see any! I went back to my Saturday morning routine... Coffee... Breakfast... And just figured the military guys were just up there testing stuff. About 45 minutes later a neighbor stopped by and said that the shuttle had disentergrated right above us and then the booms all made sense. I'll never forget that morning. God bless the crew of Columbia.
@pat91-xn8lx4vx4j It's tough to call those misfortune since Challenger and Columbia were our fault.
In Mike Leinbach's excellent book "Bringing Columbia Home" he has nothing but great praise for all of the people of east Texas whom he met. You're lucky to live there.
You heard the whole thing. Columbia was almost directly southwest abeam of Tyler by about 23 miles when she was lost. Hope you’re doing okay.
You can tell MC was worried about the foam hit because the flight director seems very fidgety and nervous even before anything happened. Normally they are very calm, cool, and collected, which is part of the job description.
Hoping and praying for a miracle
Barbara Morgan was scheduled to be on the next Columbia flight.
She was also the replacement for the Teacher in Space for Challenger.
I wonder if she plays the lottery.
She did an angel a favour once, a reeeeeally big favour.
Also, she wasn't Christa's replacement. She trained alongside her but then became MS after the cancellation and was selected to fly before the Educator Astronauts were even conceived of. She was picked for a mission in 1998 but ended up having to wait until 2007 to actually fly. She's arguably one of NASA's finest.
There is video of her watching the Challenger disaster.
My freshman English teacher was in the top 2 candidates for the state of Tennessee. Mrs. Bonnie Fakes. Lebanon High School Lebanon, Tennessee
Do you have to play lottery when you've already won the biggest price in life?
"UHF Comms check" over and over... the silence is haunting to this day.
This is a very well-done video. I really appreciate you putting this together. The way you sync'd all of these different sources of A/V was really nice. Thanks.
+Avery Stipp welcome!
At 74 now, I remember that morning and how sad I was. But as I am about to soon join them in death, I envy the crew of Columbia and the marvelous adventure they had in space. How satisfied they must have been with their life at the end. Their loss impacted us but not them.❤❤
I'm a Houston resident. I was standing out on my patio to see the reentry path about a 150 miles to the north. I saw basically what was shown on television, multiple contrails and the orbiter breaking up while watching NASA tv.It took about 20 minutes for the networks to catch on to what happened.Very sad.
Could you tell immediately that something had gone wrong?
@@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017 I was at my Sister’s & we were watching CNN because I knew Columbia was coming home & wanted to watch the Landing. When they showed that footage from above Dallas? You could tell right away she was breaking up. I remember Miles O’Brien saying it looked just like Mir did when she was deorbited into the Pacific (IIRC). One big piece & con trail, then suddenly several pieces & con trails. I actually knew when I heard over Comm they’d lost Data w/the Vehicle. I knew what that meant & started praying. 😔😪
Could mission control Houston not see it happening while it happened?
@@herrington292no, they knew it.
Out of context, there's something oddly touching about CAPCOM saying "we haven't forgotten about you"
BarryDennen12 when is this in the video
@@GigaG11 About 8:00
Excellent job! I can tell you put your heart and soul into this and all your other videos. Thank you for showing the triumphs and the disasters in our space program.
In looking at the video lower left, the debris count starts over California but the last communication was over Texas. So the crew was still alive when the shuttle began to break apart? Oh my God.
To clarify, the crew was alive *and unaware* of any problems up to the lost of communication.
The time between "The crew knew something is wrong" and the crews death was very short -- 30-90 seconds if I remember correctly.
I remember this. It's really erie that the crew have no idea that they will die in a few minutes. RIP STS 107 Crew! We still hurt for you 17 years later!
It’s a blessing they didn’t know🙏
They knew for one minute before death.
As always, well done and thank you for sharing! I was a senior in high school when this happened and even at that age was devastated. I have their mission patch along with Apollo 1 and Challengers on the wall at my desk. We will never forget, and their spirit will carry us higher!
I remember tuning in to CNN to see the landing. When they showed the shuttle clearly breaking apart it was absolutely heartbreaking. May they Rest In Peace.
This is a tremendous effort on your behalf, and a job very well done. May the crew rest in peace, and may their families, the Mission Control personnel, and all those involved find some level of peace as well.
Thank you
yo the author who put this together...GREAT JOB the mix could have been a little better but a good job in putting this together.
50:15 the dude saying how the shuttle passing over head Will provide a spectacular view for those in that area. Sheesh. Haunting statement giving what unfolded. RIP 😢
Mr Cain has nerves of absolute steel wow he did not flinch once during his realisation that STS 107 was lost
He was crying.
@@lmfao7558yes, we can see tears in other videos.
20 Years Ago Today…..R.I.P. crew of STS-107 Space Shuttle Columbia
I was on a plane getting ready to land in Miami, when the Capt. came on to tell us the Columbia was lost.
1:15:36 Fido do you have any tracking? NO SIR..Chilling and definitive. I remember like it was yesterday. Sad day
I remember when this happened very clearly. I'd lived in Texas for many years, and had seen one of the shuttles re-enter the earth's atmosphere one night, and it was an incredible sight. A couple of months after moving to Texas, Challenger blew up. A couple of months after returning to my home state, Columbia was lost. I remember the feeling of disbelief that another crew was lost, and couldn't imagine what the family of the lost crews, and crews of all shuttles must have felt.
It's so sad and eerie to hear nothing but silence after their several attempts at a comm check, knowing those brave souls were already gone.
yeah thanks for putting this together. I was one who went on to man the downlink monitoring on future takeoffs to catch debris live as it happened and get it to flight analysts after orbit was established. (aka the tank shot).
Did you also monitor downlinks from the SRB cameras as well, or was that assigned to someone else?
Feel kind of sorry for Leroy Cain the flight director. When the anonymous readings from the left wing began coming in he must have been thinking back to the meetings and emails flying around NASA for the past week about the foam strike on the orbiter left wings after launch. Considering that he was one of the people who said there was no need for additional imagery of the damage while they were still in orbit, he must have felt like being gut-punched when to breakup images came in.
Oh really? I didn't know he was one of the nay-sayers. I thought it was Linda Ham that made that call all by herself.
@@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017 it was indeed Linda Hamm. As i understand it, the flight control team did not know if the potential damage. The crew did and were talked to by someone on the ground and everyone (crew included) thought nothing of it. Which is the tragic part here because the navy (I believe) told them they could position one of their satellites to have a look and were declined by the nasa higher ups.
@@Notoriouskid28 I read on her Wikipedia page that she was only demoted from her position and continued her career at NASA. She should have been fired for not even trying to orchestrate a rescue mission or at least taking the engineers’ concerns seriously.
@@karami8844I agree
Wow. I just want to thank you for putting this together. As sad as it was for the country, it must have been so much worse for those working the return flight -- that hope to turn negative data into a flight with damaged communications, or... something. And the growing realization that it simply wasn't to be.
I would like to thank all the non-proffessional photographers/ video-ograhers on the ground filming what was suppose to be a happy occasion and presented their videos to NASA to help in their investigation.
Sadder is: they saw the heat shields being torn off during the lift off and could have aborted the mission before they reached outer space. Then q6 days in space, seems to me they should or could have figured out a way foe these souls not to burn to death upon re-entry!! I remember this day so clearly. I was watching it under on TV. Had just got to work before clock in. GOD BLESS Their families!
@@melinda5777 Unfortunately, shuttle missions could not be aborted once the solid rocket boosters were ignited, and until after they fully burned their fuel loads which took about two minutes. Also, the foam responsible for this tragedy struck the leading edge of the left wing at 81.7 seconds after lift-off when the orbiter was already traveling 2300 fps (almost 1600 mph) at an altitude of 65,900 feet (about 12.5 miles). There was nothing NASA could do at this time; however, it is theoretically possible that a mission could have later been launched to recover the crew before they exhausted their oxygen and other supplies.
The moment when the person reported 4 sensors going out - I’ll bet at least one engineer knew right then what was happening
And the fact that there was no commonality between them… four separate sensors in the same general area but not connected at all. Hindsight is 20/20 but even at that moment the sense of impending doom would’ve been incapacitating
"Roger, uh buh (CUTOFF)"
Phonetically, sounded like first syllable of "before" or possibly "both;" he may have been responding to the BFS fault messages for both left-side main landing gear tires.
The three voices talking at once is crazy making!!!
I was working security at the johnson space center when this happened,...it was a very sad day.
+Dustin Davis I cant imagine what the day was like there - thanks for the comment
Brings me to tears every time I listen to this. I don't know why I do it..
1:01:50 is the moment the shuttle started to break up, and when they took over manual control and were essentially test pilots until the enevitable break up and death of the crew of Columbia.
This is so well done. Thanks for the composite - an ode to those lost and those who tried to just do their jobs/save them.
Nicely done. I will watch more of your videos.
todd cushing thanks todd - welcome aboard the Space Centre!
Feb 1st 2003 was tragic locally for me. I lost a classmate in a car crash that morning.
Its hard to imagine they weren't watching in yhe sky and didn't see it in real time. So sad every time it just gets more heartbreaking.
Absolutely agree.
“Columbia Houston UHF comm check” with no response is always chilling
Columbia was the most beautiful of all the orbiters
Paul Anderson why?
@@rzk8302 Because she was the first? (sorry, Enterprise..)
Columbia was my favorite shuttle too.❤❤❤💔💔💔
This is one of those dramatic moments captured live I always seem to go back to as i go to bed. Theres another 2-1/2 hr upload that starts an hour earlier in re entry but ive watched this one more..a hundred times at least id bet.
I watched this one many times over and when it gets to roger uh but, i go back to around the 5 minute mark. It's like they are alive again.
1:01:43 Mission Control's last communication with Space Shuttle Columbia before its disintegration.
Oh My God! I remember that they died. I was so heartbroken. How did they die. But Ya! God Bless Them! And you who send this video. Please send More. And keep up the good work.
Thanks Sayeem - appreciate the comment
How did they die? Are you kidding? They hit the ground very hard or lack of oxygen first.
@@lmfao7558none of them made it to the ground alive… they died pretty swiftly once the cabin broke away from the rest of the orbiter. Cabin pressure would’ve been lost in an instant and they were gone in seconds.
Those at NASA were full of crap. They can skirt round the issue all they want. They damn well knew the shuttle would be in trouble after the strike against the wing.
Not really. The foam strikes happened often. They had no definitive way of knowing the damage without seeing it. The crew had no way of seeing it either. Sending a second shuttle was a possibility but it had never been attempted.. it’s hard to manage 1 shuttle in orbit at a time, now imagine two of them simultaneously. I’ll give you that they royally screwed up with Challenger but I do believe they did not know the full extent of the damage and their best guess they believed it wouldn’t be an issue as it had never been a problem in the past. Trust me the last thing they wanted was another disaster after challenger.
Approximate timing from CAIB and telemetry compilations. Edited 2/1/23. We really are hearing her breaking apart.
1:01:50 RCS fires to keep Columbia on course
1:01:52 Loss of Signal
1:02:01 Columbia loses control, aero forces overcome all attempts to regain control
1:02:08 Left OMS pod breaks off, Columbia is essentially flying straight vertical then backwards
1:02:24 Left wing separated and begins disintegrating
1:02:32 Crew Module and rest of Columbia breaks apart
I've read the detailed reports on the breakup sequence dozens and dozens of times, but every time I see the actual elapsed time, beginning to end, it really brings home how rapidly Columbia fell apart. And my heart always hurts when I see Leroy Cain holding in the emotion that comes with the sudden realisation of what has just happened to seven of his close friends and colleagues. The NASA flight directors and other missile men have no better paragon.
1.05 still not getting it.
The flashing out the overhead windows around 47:37 is the APU exhaust.
I don't buy that just the portion of the onboard videotape that recorded the crew's demise was destroyed when the vehicle broke up. I totally get why the footage wasn't released but somebody at NASA saw it.
The camera couldn't survive the intense heat and cabin pressure. Recording the crew's demise wouldn't have been possible
@@yesitssarahbby17 The tape survived but apparently only the portion that recorded the astronauts deaths was destroyed after break up. I suppose that's technically possible but I don't believe it though I understand the reason for NASA sticking to that story.
I think Clark put it away. McCool was kind of giving a gentle but firm vibe of “Ok, let’s get ourselves situated.” Chawla even said, lightheartedly but also with intention, “Stop playing”. If there was more to the tape, we’ll never see it, and thank God for that, we don’t need to. But it could also be that what burned away was just a few more minutes or seconds before she stowed it.
The realization at 1:15:18 is awful. They know something catastrophic has just happened. How horrifying.
Whenever you hear lock the doors it’s never good.
It’s a damn miracle somebody wasn’t killed on the ground also...
Wow, that look Hobaugh and Cain exchange at 1:06:45...
If there were people on the ground who knew about the foam strike and knew it could be a fatal outcome, how many of the people in MCC knew that much? Would've been nerve-wracking, waiting for the landing to happen with that knowledge.
***** There were a lot of people in the MOCR that day who had been privy to the analysis and conversations ref the debris strike on launch - including the Flight Director Leroy Cain - I can recommend the book Comm Check which details the detail
+lunarmodule5 Good info thanks.
Looking back now some 16yrs ago and watching and putting together the videos NASA knew before hand that there was going to be a problem but they had no other choice then to take the chance of reentry for Columbia.
@@ziggy8013 That’s not exactly true. The CAIB report details a few options had management done their job. The options include reducing the stress on the left wing by changing the turns, cold soaking the wing, stuffing it with debris, and even a potential rescue mission. None of them were guaranteed, but they could have improved their odds.
This video is sad, but it also makes me angry.
The space shuttle gets a bad rap, from almost everyone. However, the orbiter itself never failed. Challenger, SRB failure. Columbia, ET failure.
I literally cry everytime.
Watching the tragic Challenger live on TV as a kid still haunts me, then years later my kids witnessed this 😔 RIP to all. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To me it’s still remarkable that engineers didn’t calculate with the possibility that a piece of foam hitting the orbiter at a certain point of acceleration could cause serious damage to the tiles. Tests made after the disaster even had to be repeated several times before the result was matching with what really happened at launch. So it’s not that surprising NASA noticed the impact (what they thought to be just a so to say graze shot) but never considered it to be a serious problem. It’s so easy to say the losses of lives and material could’ve been prevented given the knowledge of today, that’s what I’d like to tell everyone who’s written mostly stupid things here.
Right on! They knew prom previous flights that the foam breaks off, and no one thought to calculate the impatct? No one thought " what if" ???? It is a design flaw!!
It wasn't a tile that was damaged, it was the carbon leading edge of the wings. But I agree, that carbon structure should have been tough enough to resist a strike of this sort.
I still think about these souls and the courage they all demonstrated. I also think about all the NASA professionals that watched and could do nothing to save them. Especially Mr Cain.
Its like final destination in a way how the foam that hit the right wing of the shuttle doomed them to there fate. R.i.p
It was the left wing
every time i see videos of Columbia i always look to see if i could see the hole
Nice work LM5 - a fitting tribute.
:( Rest In Peace Brave Souls
I'm wondering if any recognized body parts of the Columbia shuttle crew were found amongst the debris...
yes they were..
All of the astronauts aboard were identified. That’s all that’s worth saying, in my opinion.
57:20 "Where is this instrumentation located?". "In the aft part of the left wing".... The exact moment that NASA realises it should probably have done something about the huge chunk of foam that smashed into the left wing on launch.
+Ross Hutchison They couldn't have done anything about it. They had no way to repair it in orbit.
+DarkLight753 But They could have sent up another shuttle to save them.
+Lindsey Gardner Shuttles takes weeks to launch
humans can survive for weeks in space.
But they never had "weeks" worth of food onboard.
I think about this crew now and then. When the end came it came relatively quickly. But there would have been a few minutes of terror. One hopes that the depressurization ended that suffering for all onboard. But we will never know for certain.
1:08:10 - I can hear the concern in his voice.
Watching this makes you want to be able to warn them of the impending disaster.
Only if we could
Linda Ham pulled the plug on the investigation when they were still in orbit.
Simply tragic. Those folks knew something was amok early on due to the discussions relating to foam strike earlier in the week. Complacency and arrogance on the ground killed this crew.
Absolutely 100% correct on your statement. Wtf did they think at 18x the speed of sound would happen to the Columbia? It's mind boggling that NASA could have such a "let's keep our fingers crossed that nothing bad hapoens" instead of fixing the problem. Fucking lame, ignorant, etc etc etc. All bad. I doubt the crew was told of any possible worst case scenarios.
I disagree. The ground crew might've known and brought it to the attention of many, but it's often just ONE person that is control (making decisions) that chose to "not worry about it".
So very sad watching this. As before with Challenger, if an engineer or tech says there might be a problem, you'd better take notice of what they are saying.
I am interested in anything you put together about Columbia and it’s crew. I’m fascinated with Columbia
"We haven't forgotten about you!"
If he only knew...
What did that lady mean when she said, right as the orbiter was starting to break up "We're taking some hits here, we're right on top of the tail. Not too bad"?
Sensor data readings or communication connection? Something like that. But who knows how sensors react during a vehicle breakup.
RIP to the Columbia Astronauts. This tragedy could have possibly been avoided if NASA took the foam strike much more seriously. Unfortunately NASA didn’t learn much of anything from the Challenger tragedy.
R.I.P.
You've done good work here.
Was it after this event when it became standard for crews to use the Canadarm to survey the orbiter 100% of launch damage once in orbit?
yep, starting with STS-114
Should also be noted that an orbital inspection boom was attached to the Canadarm, in order to facilitate the inspection.
After
1:15:18 - lock the doors
Heartbreaking
They didn't know the Columbia was doomed because they didn't want to know.
When the radio starts to crackle you know it’s breaking apart. You will all be missed. Even by this little Canadian nobody
It's blood churning.... one voice is quiet and non- challantly informing..the other one.. FD Cain voice is getting more more worried.
I think personally there was more video to the "Home Movie" they shot but we'll never see it..... Thank God...... R. I. P. Columbia Crew.....
Perhaps. I can believe the rest was burned away, or maybe she just stopped recording. McCool had kind of given off the vibe of “Cmon Laurel, put the camera away, we gotta get situated for landing”
The announcer kept spewing about irrelevant factoids after confirmation that the vehicle was destroyed. I'm surprised he didn't start announcing the previous days football scores.
They need to put a regular TV in and on in Mission control. They would of been able to see the shuttle breaking up and falling on TV.
It could have been even worse. A slightly different orbital pass and it would have broken up right over Houston, probably end up with debris on JSC property. (the breakup took place around Dallas).
Will you help understand why that would've been worse?
They calculated that if they had waited until the 2nd possible landing time (which had been a consideration due to weather at Canaveral) and the breakup happened at the same rate, etc... the shuttle would have come down in metro Houston instead of in very rural areas of Texas and Louisiana. Who knows how many people on the ground would have been killed.
So the last words were "Roger, but.." or is something audible here 1:02:05 ??? It seems like the squelch of the radio activated transmission because of the noise but nothing was said, or can you make out any word?
What do the mean by c-band? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_band
Is it infrared tracking, radio or some c-band radar, cause they say radar?
The b- word that was cut off was determined to be either “both” (in reference to the tire pressure messages) or “before”
So very tragic and sad.
1:15:18 - order is made to "lock the doors"
42:55 At the Time Space Shuttle Columbia next Mission was announced to be STS-118, The Mission was rescheduled to Space Shuttle Endeavour
Did she say " not too bad " to tip of the tail, knowing that it's potentially losing a tail, which on its own is catastrophic???
LeRoy was a Stud Hero that day!!! Those folks at Houston Control were ALWAYS Larger than life♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
I remember of Space Shuttle Columbia Accident in January 16 2003
I wish I knew where Linda Ham was when she heard and what her reaction was like. I hope she knew right away her head was up next.
Where is the PAO talks from?
He's in Mission Control, listening to the flight controller loop.
Houston doesn't know for over 10 minutes that EVERY system onboard Columbia is dead? WTF
Great work as always, LM5. I would only suggest that you credit the video used in lower left of compiled reentry footage from the ground from around 56:00.
Thanks Phoenix..fyi Chris Valentines work is credited in the main description... regards LM5
1:15:12 "Lock the Doors." the final statement that it was hopeless
Was the simulator footage from Orbitor 2010?
+CentralFloridaHipHop yes
*****
First I love your channel. You do an excellent job with these videos in particular the Apollo Era!! My favorite period, the Saturn V was absolutely amazing.
Anyway, I know it isn't your video but on the bottom left video at 59:35 do you think that is the way the shuttle actually looked (the left wing) or is image simply distorted from being so far away, in low resolution, and being banked?
I know the breakup started on the left wing (the first four sensors going out) and we were able to see debris from the spacecraft before. I have never seen that image before and was just wondering.
stonewall01 Thanks stonewall - I appreciate the comments. As for the photo - It was taken at
about 8:57. The
image was taken at Starfire Optical Range at Kirtland Air Force Base. Whether it is "too far away" to be positively identified as debris on the left wing, I would argue that the right side wing looks fairly uniform, so possibly and probably, yes it is showing the wing damage - however, these things are always up for conjecture and I would welcxome others thoughts. Hope that helps. regards LM5
stonewall01 see this iss.jaxa.jp/shuttle/flight/sts107/sts_accident/pict/pb-20030318-2.gif
Where can I download the FD Loop from? I mean the audio version, not the transcripts?
Just search STS-107 flight loop on here. You can find about a 20 minute video, that picks up just prior to Columbia's last transmission.
As with the Challenger, this was not what I would entirely call an accident. There was egrigious negligence and coverup that went on with this by NASA administrators. Read the report from the commission that investigated it, and you might not feel it was much of a true accident.
I’m sorry but there are some people who should have been shot for how this was dealt with, so much could of been done but instead they buried their heads in the sand knowing there was a massive f-ing hole in the wing, absolutely appalling. RIP Columbia crew and bless the families ❤
No one knew the extent of the damage and literally nothing could be done. There was no shuttle ready to do a rescue launch and Columbia could not have docked at the ISS for safety because not only did the Columbia have no docking equipment because it was purely a scientific mission they were also in a complete different orbit than the ISS.
@@yesitssarahbby17they knew the extent of the damage the next day after the launch so that’s bs
Every thing ready for their landing, medical team, run way check all. But they never came back and mixed in sky.