Because this site
may be considered controversial by some people, out of respect for the astronauts and their
families no photos of the astronauts will be posted on this site. In
addition, this page will not contain any attempted memorials to the
astronauts, pictures of debris
representing their uniforms, environment suits, gear that they might have been
carrying or personal items. The names of the astronauts will only be
used when absolutely necessary to the investigation.
It has also been noticed that the official investigation ignored some
prominent data such as the infrasonic comparisons between STS-107 and other
similar shuttle reentries as well as details about the nature of the debris
plume shown on the NOAA weather satellite images that were produced during the
shuttle breakup. The reentry close up video, taken just seconds prior to
breakup, from Colony Texas by Dan McNew was also ignored. It is unknown why nothing about this data was mentioned
in the C.A.I.B. report but it will be checked to determine if it is
nonsensical or otherwise worthless. If it is determined that some of the
information contained within the official report is false, or if the outcome
of that report is changed significantly by the addition of the missing data,
then the entire STS-107 reentry flight path will need to be reevaluated using
all available associated data. Since Columbia's forward velocity and
decelerations were verified previously and it was determined that they match
the officially published data, the main focus of this analysis will be on the
altitude, angle and rate of descent.
Observational
Analysis B1 01/04/2004
Verify Columbia's
Officially Posted Altitude
This section is supported by,
OA-A1
-
Analysis of Chris Valentine's Video Data Verifies geodetic position of Columbia during reentry flight.
TA-A1
-
Reentry Flight Maneuvers and Corresponding Equations Detailed description of flight maneuvers.
TA-A2
-
Columbia's Final Attitude Details of Columbia's final few minutes.
TA-A4
-
Shockwave Formation and Sonic Booms A rough altitude estimate based on eyewitness acounts of sonic boom
intensity.
TA-B1
-
Space Shuttle Reentry Sonic Boom Seismic
Recordings Seismograph record of the STS-107 reentry compared to other shuttle
reentries.
Proximity
of debris to Columbia's final locations:
Fig.
OA-B1-1 overlays the first two frames of the NOAA satellite series and the
debris plot over the STS-107 Ground Track pages showing the final
moments of Columbia's reentry. Note that the point
on the Ground Track labeled as, "Onset of Vehicle Main Body
Breakup", at 14:00:23 falls well after the
beginning of the debris field. With the officially posted values
for Columbia's altitude and velocity at LOS being
1200,767 Ft. and Mach
18 respectively one would expect the debris field to be a
considerable distance from the point of vehicle breakup. This
location for vehicle breakup requires that some of the debris travel
travel backwards from that point which is extremely unlikely. The
ground track also has a point near the end of the debris field shown
as a hypothetical point of impact at 14:03:34 GMT, or about 3+ minutes
after LOS/breakup. Some
intuitive observations lead to the preliminary conclusion that the
flight path data, debris location data and possibly even the NOAA
satellite data do not jive with the final altitude and velocity
values. Since the shuttle's forward velocity values at various
points along the flight path have already been verified and
correspond with the Mach 18 given at LOS, it is more than likely the
given altitude the must be checked. Some
engineering analysis should be done to check the validity of where
these locations are shown on the
STS-107
GTrack Rev 15.pdf document.
Fig.
OA-B1-1
UPDATE:
08/08/2003
The
following e-mail was received regarding the apparent location of
the debris plume on the radar image. The location of
vehicle main body breakup with respect to the debris field is
still up for debate.
The
Fort Polk weather radar imagery is a product called
"Base Reflectivity." That means it only
uses the lowest elevation data from the radar which
is collected at 0.5 degrees elevation above ground
level. Since the breakup and debris field
generation occurred at a much higher elevation
angle as observed from Fort Polk, the debris
only became visible once it had descended to a much
lower altitude.
See
http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/users/wood/public_html/PUBL/CONF/Radar_29/fig01.gif and
look at the altitude vs. elevation angle for a 0.5
degree radar beam. Even at a distance of 200 km from
the radar site, the 0.5 degree beam can't see anything
above 6 km in altitude. Since the breakup occurred
so much higher than 6 km above ground level, the debris
had plenty of time to move downrange before it finally
became visible to the radar.
Tim
Armstrong
Meteorologist
NWS
Wilmington, NC
Thank
you Tim Armstrong.
6km
is equal to an altitude of 19,685 Ft.
An excellent method for
determining the initial altitude of a freefalling item is to determine
its terminal velocity, (maximum vertical free fall velocity
due to the acceleration of gravity within an atmosphere).
From this velocity value, the time to impact can be calculated and
checked against any officially published values.
Checking the officially
published altitude value:
At
some point after LOS the Columbia went from being a single object to
an airborne, "debris mass",
eventually expanding to hundreds of thousands of individual pieces, (thus
far approximately 84,000+ pieces of debris have been recovered,
about 37% of the shuttle by weight). The factors
affecting the trajectory of any given debris piece arethe item's initial velocity, altitude and
angle of descent as well as its weight and lift and drag coefficients.
Knowing these variables will allow us to calculate the terminal
velocity of any piece of debris and determine its travel time to
impact. Many of the lighter flat panels that broke free from the
main body stopped traveling forward almost immediately and fluttered
to the ground within a few hundred yards of where they separated, most
of these fell at the beginning of the debris field near Dallas.
Other heavier pieces continued to travel along the flight path for
hundreds of miles. The SSME Powerheads
were by far the heaviest single items from the debris field and they
traveled the furthest.
The SSME Powerheads are at the extreme end of the
debris field near Fort Polk LA. The
final report contains the velocity at which the SSME's impacted the
ground as Mach 2 and the items weight as 800 lbs. A
secondary debris item should be a theoretical piece of arbitrary debris that
falls near the center of the debris field. By looking at the
photos of debris on this page and on the Investigation page
you can get some idea of the size and shape of typical debris in that
area and to some extent the approximate weight of those items.
Since the drag and lift coefficients are
virtually impossible to determine accurately due to unknown attitude
and tumble rate of the items as they fell,a value of 1 is very reasonable and will be
used for both coefficients on any and all debris items.
Because this calculation will be checking the conclusions stated in
the official final report all of the initial values will come from
that document, initial velocity is Mach 18
and initial altitude is 1200,767 Ft.
Since the final report makes the case that the Columbia was flying
within a nominal reentry envelope when it suddenly broke up, the
nominal angle and rate
of descent for that point in time of reentry will be used. For a
nominal Space Shuttle reentry at EI+923 the angle of descent is
0.3960° and the rate of descent is 200 Ft./Sec.
Fig.
OA-B1-2
Fig.
OA-B1-2 is a representative comparison of how debris from
different ends of the size, shape and weight spectrum would have
traveled to the ground based on the official location of
"vehicle main body breakup"
using the corresponding initial altitude and velocity values.
Some general assumptions have been made about the debris
properties and the initial conditions.
The assumptions made for the calculation to the left is that the SSME Powerheads
are pitched straight forward, initial vertical velocity equals
0, at their initial horizontal velocity of Mach 18.
The parabolic trajectory is based on a free falling
object with roughly equal vertical and horizontal velocities.
However this trajectory may not be accurate for objects that
have an initial very high forward momentum value such as the
Powerheads. The trajectory may then be much straighter.
Trajectory Diagram 1 shows the questionable location of
"vehicle main body breakup"
discovered in the overlay analysis of
Fig.
OA-B1-1. This location for vehicle breakup in relation to
the size and proximity of the debris field would require that a
good portion of the debris travel in the opposite direction
after breakup. Trajectory Diagram 2, Fig.
OA-B1-4, shows a more likely
location for the breakup of an aircraft traveling at high
altitude and hypersonic velocity in relation to the debris field.
Conclusions:
Because there are a
number of unknown factors affecting the trajectory of any given
piece of debris, determining a terminal velocity due to gravity
should give an approximate but acceptable time to impact.
Using known properties for debris items and
some general assumptions as well as the
initial conditions stated in the official final report, the
following vertical travel times to impact have been calculated.
SSME Powerhead = 10.00 Min.
Arbitrary Debris Item = 14.36 Min.
Fig.
OA-B1-3
Fig.
OA-B1-3 is simply an analysis of the Powerhead trajectory using
Newtonian Mechanics. It assumes that the Powerheads
continued on a more or less straight course during and after
main body vehicle breakup occurred which is probably correct.
The problem with this relationship is that with the very long
horizontal distance and shallow angle involved it is unable to
determine very much about the altitude.
It is simply the most probably method NASA
used to calculate the impact time shown in the Ground Track
documents. The distance of travel is the hypotenuse of a
right triangle made of the altitude and the distance to main
body vehicle breakup or where that altitude occurred along the
Ground Track. The final velocity of Mach 2 is probably
from a final radar image of the items mentioned on one of the
debris maps.
If the initial altitude is cut in half from
its present value or even down to one quarter the final answer
is only changed by a few percent.
Summary
/ Conclusions:
Based
on the calculations shown in the diagram of
Fig.
OA-B1-2 using the official final altitude
200,767 Ft., it would have taken between 10
and 15 minutes for debris to start hitting the ground
from the time of breakup at 13:59:32 to
14:00:00. This places the time of impact for
the SSME Powerheads
at 14:10:00. This period of time is contrary to the available physical
evidence in the form of the NOAA satellite images. The
first image in the series taken at
13:55:00,
approximately 5 minutes prior to breakup, shows a clear
sky over the area of Columbia's flight path. The second
image time stamped at
14:05:00,
5 minutes after breakup, shows the complete debris trail
left air born by what is assumed to be the SSME Powerheads
that impacted at the very end of the debris field. This
would only be possible if the SSME Powerheadsimpacted well before 14:05:00.
At
13:55:00 GMT the sky over the Eastern end of the debris
field is completely clear.
By
14:05:00 GMT, 5 Min. after breakup, the same area
shows the air born debris trail.
It can now be stated that at least some of the officially posted
reentry data is incorrect. The final altitude before
breakup has been analyzed and is determined to be wrong.
This is based on time to impact data and is supported by the
NOAA satellite image data. The NOAA image data was then
ignored in the official investigation because it directly
contradicts the posted altitude of
200,767 Ft. The
debris field location data is probably very accurate due the
work of hundreds of volunteers. Based on the image
overlay, see
Fig.
OA-B1-1, it can then be deduced that the point labeled as
"location ofvehicle main body breakup"
is incorrect. It is positioned too far East to have created
the debris field shown in the various images.
The Ballistics
Calculation from Ground Track Rev. 15
Ten to
fifteen minutes
is a
lot longer than the three minutes stated on the last page of the
STS-107
GTrack Rev 15.pdf document. Whoever did the calculation for
the point located at 30.78107, -92.55697 and labeled,
"Reference Trajectory Ground Impact for Hypothetical
Object with Ballistic Number = 220 psf", time stamped
14:03:34 certainly had to know the actual telemetry data
for the point where Columbia broke up. This time
matches the NOAA satellite photo data but certainly not
any of the final telemetry data published by the official
investigation.
Because
we know that the SSME Powerheads were
the heaviest piece of debris and even maintained super sonic speed
until impact, a preliminary reentry trajectory can be calculated by
simply taking the angle of descent from the beginning of EI to the
end of the debris field where one of the SSME
Powerheads struck the ground at Mach 2. Because the
minimum horizontal velocity for this object was Mach 2 which is 5 to
6 times the terminal vertical velocity (VTerminal= 335 fps), the new trajectory can be
modeled as a straight line from EI rather than a
parabolic one. Additionally since the SSME's were by far the
largest and heaviest of the debris and all 3 impacted at
approximately the same location, it will be assumed that they
represent the impact of the shuttle as a whole.
The
computation box above is used to calculate the distance between
any two sets of GPS coordinates on the Earth's surface. It
is used in the calculations below to determine horizontal
travel.
Calculate
angle of descent:
Using
a triangle where the vertical leg is the altitude at EI for
STS-107, which is also a common value for all Space Shuttle
reentries, and the horizontal leg is the distance from EI to the
end of the debris field.
Altitude
at EI (Y):
1395,010
Ft.
Horizontal
distance (X):
222,817,282
Ft.
EI (Point 1):
30.8331, -167.556
End of Debris Field (Point
2):
31.0315,
-93.0742
The
angle of descent was then
(q):
Tan-1 (395,010
/ 22,817,282) =1°
The
triangle created by the EI altitude and horizontal distance has an
angle of 1° which translates into the angle of descent. 1°
is not unreasonable for any Space Shuttle reentry during the
initial phase of flight, see "Reentry
Aerodynamics", in the document,
Shuttle_Flight_Properties.pdf.
It also does not disagree with the initial angle of descent
0.7644° calculated using the before and after data from the
De-orbit Burn Procedure because this calculation takes the
entire flight path into consideration after EI.
Calculate
altitude at LOS:
To
determine the altitude at LOS another triangle is created using
the horizontal distance from LOS to the end of the debris field
and the 1° angle.
(q):
1°
Horizontal
distance (X):
21,974,849
Ft.
LOS (Point 1):
32.9561, -99.0413
End of Debris Field (Point
2):
31.0315,
-93.0742
Altitude
at LOS (Y):
(1,974,849)(Tan
1°) = 34,471 Ft.
The
altitude at LOS is determined to be 34,471 ~ 34,500 Ft.
This
value for the altitude at LOS is far from the officially published
value for STS-107,1200,767
Ft. The 200,767 Ft. altitude is where the
Columbia would have been at 13:59:32 during the STS-107 reentry
if the shuttle was following the flight routine contained in the
OPS 304 reentry flight computer program. The graphical
representation of the reentry flight data for another Columbia
mission, STS-5, is shown in Fig. A10. The chart in
Fig. A10 represents the standard Space Shuttle reentry flight path
for all shuttle missions. A vertical line is drawn on that
chart at the point where LOS occurred during STS-107,
13:59:32.
A horizontal line is then drawn from the point where the
vertical line intersects the altitude curve. The resulting
altitude value obtained by following the horizontal line all the
way to the right hand side of the chart is essentially the
same as the official value given for STS-107 at
13:59:32,
200,767 Ft. However, it has been determined that the
STS-107 reentry flight path will look very different from the
Fig. A10 chart because Columbia suffered multiple systems
failures rendering the flight control systems virtually useless
just prior to the point where the shuttle would have started the
various reentry flight maneuvers. Based on all of the analysis done on
the debris field and its proximity to both LOS and the officially
established point where the, "Onset of Vehicle Main Body
Breakup",occurred as well as the eyewitness reports regarding the strength
of the sonic booms in the areas of the debris field, it is an
extremely reasonable value if not absolutely correct.
Second
check (altitude of NOAA debris plume):
As
a second check the altitude of Columbia at a known point along the
flight path that is very close to the
NOAA debris plume should roughly
match the debris plumes altitude. The city of Nacogdoches is very
clzose to the beginning of the plume and its coordinates are
31.54865
N. Latitude and -94.59305 W. Longitude. The first step is to
determine the Columbia's altitude over Nacogdoches using the same
method as the two previous calculations.
Fig.
OA-B1-4 is a portion of the last page from the STS-107 Ground Track
Rev. 15 overlaid with the debris plot,
Fig.
B2, and the debris
plume from the NOAA satellite photo,
Fig.
B5. The location
of certain eyewitness accounts are marked by red
circles. The red cross
closest to Nacogdoches is where the altitude of the debris plume was
calculated. The location of
vehicle breakup is clearly too far into the debris field to be
correct, it should be located well before the debris field.
Fig.
OA-B1-4
Using
the horizontal distance from Nacogdoches to the end of the debris
field and an angle of descent of 1°.
(q):
1°
Horizontal
distance (X):
2509,702
Ft.
Nacogdoches (Point
1):
31.5486, -94.5931
End of Debris Field (Point
2):
31.0315,
-93.0742
Altitude at Nacogdoches (Y):
(509,702)(Tan
1°) = 8,897 Ft.
The
altitude of Columbia at Nacogdoches is determined to be 8,897 ~
8,900 Ft.
When the
NOAA was contacted regarding the altitude of the debris plume in the
satellite photo the method given involved determining the ground
distance between two points and using a radar reflectivity chart, noaa_sat_alt800.gif,
provided for calculating the altitude of objects on satellite
photos. For the location of the debris plume the chosen ground
points were Lake Charles and the city of Lufkin, both shown on
Fig.
B5, which are 155 km (84 Nautical Miles) apart. By using
the radar reflectivity chart and following the 0.5° angle of
elevation line the corresponding altitude is 2.88 km (9,450 Ft.)
which for all intents and purposes is an exact match for the
calculated altitude at Nacogdoches. Click
on the Reflectivity Chart below to see the actual calculation.
8,900
Ft. ~ 9,450 Ft.
With
just 6% difference between the two roughly calculated values it can
be stated without a doubt that the calculation and the theory are
correct.
An analysis of seismic data recorded during
various Space Shuttle reentries including STS-107 finds that
the seismographic data also supports the Modified Trajectory theory.
See, Technical Article
TA-B1;
Space Shuttle Reentry Sonic Boom Seismic Recordings.
Modified STS-107 Reentry Trajectory
Fig.
OA-B1-5 shows the
straight line modified trajectory of Columbia during the STS-107
reentry. This assumed straight line trajectory is
representative of the method used for estimating the impact location
of unguided objects during hypersonic atmospheric reentry. The Columbia entered the atmosphere with an angle
of descent of 1° that was set up during the retro burn
procedure. The Columbia would then simply maintain that
descent angle if no
effort was made to guide the shuttle or perform the standard flight
maneuvers to reduce the rate of decent and bleed off forward speed.
The most consistent data available points to this straight line
trajectory as the probable flight path for the STS-107 reentry.
After the onset of Vehicle Main Body Breakup some lighter debris
items assumed a parabolic flight path while the heaviest items
continued on a straight course. This is because as the shuttle
went from being a single object to a debris mass various pieces of
debris decelerate to sub-sonic speed faster than others and follow a
parabolic trajectory to the ground.
The flight telemetry
data published by the official investigation contains a great deal
data points that contradict and or
conflict with one another. There is also a significant amount
of data in the official STS-107 Time Line document that is labeled
as "Suspect" and "Possibly Error Prone" usually due to equipment
failures onboard the shuttle at the time the data was being recorded
or transmitted to Mission Control. This provides an easy way
to either answer questions from the investigation in a way that
supports your desired outcome, or avoid answering some questions all
together. If an analysis requires the use of tainted data any
intelligent assumption appears to be acceptable as an answer.
In order to establish and maintain the integrity and legitimacy of
the investigation represented on this web site, the requirements for
the conclusions of a specific analysis are that they contain either
a numerical answer that has a single absolute value or a range of
values depending on the nature of the analysis. It is also
required that events listed within the chronology of an established
scenario have a single established start and end time.
However, because certain data items simply do not exist or provide
ambiguous answers, the point where Onset of Vehicle Main Body
Breakup occurs cannot be determined as a single point in time to the
second. Because the Columbia had been shedding minor debris
for quite some time during reentry, the exact dividing line between
minor debris shedding events and the point where major shuttle
components begin separating from one another cannot be known.
The time range where it exists is between the point where LOS
occurs, 13:59:32 and a maximum
of 20 seconds after LOS, 13:59:52.
Fig.
OA-B1-5
Fig.
OA-B1-6 is a diagram made from the last page of Ground Track
Rev. 15, with the Debris Field Map and the NOAA Radar Image
overlaid on top of it. It gives a truer indication of
where the Onset of Vehicle Main Body Breakup may have occurred
in relation to the size and location of the debris field based
on the results of this analysis. A 20 second range is
given for the point in time when vehicle breakup may have
occurred existing between possible coincidence with LOS at
13:59:32 and a final possible time of 13:59:52. the time
range is necessary It is impossible to determine the exact
moment when vehicle breakup began.
Fig.
OA-B1-6
Summary
/ Conclusions:
The
official altitude of Columbia at LOS is 200,767 Ft. which would
indicate that the shuttle was flying normal until that
point. However, an altitude of 200,767 Ft. does not fit
the shape, size and location of the debris field and does not
fit the eyewitness accounts regarding how residents near the
location of LOS and breakup heard and felt the subsequent sonic
booms.
It
was then theorized that the Columbia was at a much lower
altitude at LOS and a rough estimate was made for that altitude
based on the actual size and shape of the debris field as well
as its location with respect to LOS. The change in the
location of where main body vehicle breakup occurred is based on
the possibility that it happened at LOS rather than somewhere
further down the flight path. This is because no reliable
telemetry data exists after LOS, (it
has been shown on this site that the OEX
data recorder was planted in the debris field as part of a
cover-up and cannot be trusted). The
new roughly estimated altitude was between 25,000 and 45,000 Ft.
with the resulting reentry scenario having Columbia maintaining
a constant rate of descent of 1° up to where the largest
and heaviest portions of the orbiter, (the
SSME Powerheads), impacted the ground at Mach
2. This scenario means that Columbia descended
through the Earths atmosphere far too fast overheating the
thermal resistant tiles and RCC leading edge material and
grossly overstressing the airframe leading to the orbiters
breakup.
All of the
subsequent altitude calculations based on the above scenario
have worked out including an independent check against the
altitude of the debris plume on an
NOAA satellite photo.
The new scenario holds that Columbia maintained a forward ground
speed that is typical of a standard shuttle reentry using the
OPS 304 guidance program and therefore all of the location data
for the STS-107 reentry was predictable based on past flight
histories making everything appear normal up to a point.
For some reason the Columbia never performed any of the roll and
bank flight maneuvers that slow the rate of descent and
control aerodynamic heating. The shuttle simply plowed
through the atmosphere as if completely unguided until an
uncontrolled yaw rate caused Columbia to
turn 90° to the flight path over stressing the air frame resulting the the shuttles breakup at an altitude of
34,500 Ft. and a speed of Mach 18.
The resulting straight line
reentry trajectory shown in Fig.
OA-B1-4 is the Modified STS-107 Reentry Trajectory.
Altitude
values for both Entry Interface (EI) and Columbia's location at
Loss Of Signal (LOS) are the officially published values for
STS-107 and considered to be the nominal values for all Space
Shuttle reentry flights.
Horizontal
distance is computed by determ+ining the geodetic coordinates of
two locations on the STS-107 Ground Track Rev. 15 documents and
then using the small program for finding the
distance.
If
some significant aspect of the official final report depends on a Space
Shuttle that was flying normally up to just before its breakup then those
findings are in error. In
fact Columbia was not flying well at all and was probably not flying according
to the reentry flight path
instructions that are contained within the OPS 304 computer program. The OPS
304 guidance program was designed to guide the Space Shuttle through the most critical phase of reentry while keeping all of the various TPS materials well
within their given temperature extremes. The fact that the shuttle was
at 34,500 Ft. when it was supposed to be at 200,767 Ft. means that the rate of
descent from EI to LOS was far greater than any of the design parameters
allowed for and most likely resulted in extreme overheating of TPS surfaces
and large over stresses on the orbiters air frame. The most likely
scenario puts the Columbia in a flat spin at LOS when she was torn apart by mammoth lateral aerodynamic moments.
Formation of
the debris field: The size shape and location of the
debris field has been well established by the personal accounts of
eyewitnesses and press reports, therefore this data will be accepted as true
and correct for any calculations done on this site. Analyzing
the size and shape of the debris field as well as how debris is distributed
through it may reveal clues about what was happening to the Columbia through
the breakup process and exactly when and where breakup began and how long it
lasted. Typically commercial and
military aircraft that either crash, explode or
suffer a catastrophic breakup in mid air create a fan shaped debris field that
spreads out from the point of impact or from where the event occurred. Columbia's debris
field is far different than that of a conventional aircraft and therefore
standard methodology for air crash investigation cannot be used.
Location
of Debris Field N. Latitude / W. Longitude
