AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 30

NASA
BRIEFING
AV I AT ION HISTORY /
End of an era
Marking the twentieth anniversary of Columbia
BY JULIE SUMMERS WALKER
IT'S BEEN 20 YEARS since the NASA space shuttle Columbia
broke up as it returned to Earth, killing the seven astronauts
on board. The Columbia disaster occurred on February 1,
2003. NASA suspended space shuttle flights for more than
two years as it investigated the cause of the Columbia
disaster and eventually retired the program in 2011.
An investigation board
determined that a large piece
of foam fell from the shuttle's
external tank and breached the
spacecraft wing. The problem
with the foam had been known
for years, and NASA came under
intense scrutiny in Congress and
in the media for allowing the situation
to continue.
The Columbia mission
was the second space shuttle
disaster after Challenger, which
saw a catastrophic failure during
its launch in 1986.
The seven-member crew included Rick Husband,
commander; Michael Anderson, payload commander;
David Brown, mission specialist; Kalpana Chawla, mission
specialist; Laurel Clark, mission specialist; William
McCool, pilot; and Ilan Ramon, payload specialist from
the Israeli Space Agency. The crew had spent 24 hours a
day doing science experiments in two shifts and performed
around 80 experiments in life sciences, material sciences,
fluid physics, and other matters before beginning their
return to Earth's surface after 16 days in space.
The shuttle was making its landing approach to the
Kennedy Space Center when just before 9 a.m. EST,
abnormal readings showed up at Mission Control.
Temperature readings from sensors located on the left wing
were lost. Then, tire pressure readings from the left side of
the shuttle also vanished.
The search for debris took weeks, as it was spread across
From left are Payload Commander Michael Anderson, Commander
Rick Husband, Mission Specialist Laurel Clark, Pilot William " Willie "
McCool, and Mission Specialists Ilan Ramon, Kalpana Chawla, and
David Brown. Above right: Space Shuttle Columbia.
30
AOPA PILOT / January 2024
2,000 square miles in east Texas alone. NASA eventually
recovered 84,000 pieces, representing nearly 40 percent of
Columbia by weight. Among the recovered material were
crew remains, which were identified with DNA.
The space shuttle program was retired in July 2011
after 135 missions. NASA developed a commercial crew
program to eventually replace shuttle flights to the space
station and brokered an agreement with the Russians to use
Soyuz spacecraft to ferry U.S. astronauts to orbit. Today,
astronauts from the United States fly to the International
Space Station on Russian Soyuz rockets or aboard
commercial spacecraft, like the SpaceX Crew Dragon,
which began a space taxi service to the ISS in 2020.
julie.walker@aopa.org

AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024

AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - Intro
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - Cover1
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - Cover2
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 1
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 2
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 3
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 4
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 5
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 6
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 7
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 8
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 9
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 10
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 11
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 12
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 13
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 14
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 15
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 16
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 17
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 18
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 19
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 20
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 21
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 22
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 24
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 25
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 26
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 27
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 28
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 29
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 30
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 31
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 32
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 33
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 34
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 37
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 39
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 40
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 41
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 42
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 43
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 45
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 46
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 47
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 48
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - R1
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - R2
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - R3
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - R4
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 49
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 50
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 51
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 52
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 53
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 54
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 55
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 56
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 57
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 58
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 59
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 60
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 61
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 62
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 63
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 64
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 65
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 66
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 67
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 68
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 69
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 70
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 78
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 79
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 81
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 83
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 85
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 86
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 88
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 89
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 90
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 91
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 94
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 96
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 97
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 100
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 112
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 113
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - Cover4
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