NASA: Columbia has begun to break up over California * again focusing on the wing

The American space agency confirmed on Tuesday for the first time that parts of the space shuttle "Columbia" began to fall even when the shuttle was over the coast of the Pacific Ocean and over the state of California in the western United States

The American space agency confirmed on Tuesday for the first time that parts of the space shuttle "Columbia" began to fall even when the shuttle was over the coast of the Pacific Ocean and over the state of California in the western United States. It is assumed that small parts of the shuttle disintegrated in these areas, about four minutes before the shuttle was lost over the states of Texas and Louisiana.

Claims about parts of the shuttle falling in the western US were heard from the first day by journalists and amateur astronomers, who saw fragments falling in California, but only this week did NASA give an official confirmation. These parts can be essential to understanding the circumstances of the disaster, because they can indicate the exact location on the shuttle, where the malfunction that led to the crash began. However, NASA researchers believe that these are extremely small fragments, which apparently burned up during the fall to the ground and will not be able to be located.

The external investigation committee, headed by retired admiral Harold Gaiman, decided to expand the scope of its investigation and not focus only on the events of February 1st. The committee will also investigate NASA's budget policy and examine the effect of the cuts the agency has undergone in the last decade, on the safety level of space flights. After the crash, workers and experts claimed that the ongoing cutbacks led to layoffs of essential workers who were involved in the safety of the ferry.

The director of the space agency, Sean O'Keefe, sent a letter to Admiral Gaiman on Tuesday, in which he redefined the committee's work rules, to ensure its independence. The change was decided following criticism in Congress, which claims that the members of the Independent Investigation Committee are connected to NASA and other government agencies, and therefore will have difficulty investigating the space agency.

Admiral Gaiman said several times that the committee has no connection to NASA and will redo all the tests and measurements independently, without relying on NASA data. He also promised that in the discussions held by the committee, any expert who believes that he has something to contribute to the investigation will be allowed to have his say.

The Columbia crash investigation is once again focusing on the damage to the wing

After more than two weeks, during which dozens of theories were tested regarding the causes of the disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia, the researchers are now back and focusing on the damage to the shuttle wing. According to this idea, a piece of insulating material or other space debris from the shuttle's fuel tank hit the left wing during launch, thus sealing the shuttle's fate.

In the first days of the investigation, NASA announced that it was focusing on the insulating material, which is sprayed on the container as a foam and then hardens, but later the possibility was ruled out. Now that the team is made up of outside investigators, the insulation material is back in focus, as well as the ice that may have accumulated on it, and a protective layer underneath the insulating foam.

At the NASA plant in New Orleans where the shuttle's external fuel tanks are made, researchers began testing the tanks to see if the blame lies in the materials they are made of. This is what a factory worker said. The giant tanks, which cost about 43 million dollars, are assembled on site and the foam is sprayed on them by computer-controlled robotic arms. Lockheed-Martin operates the facility, and according to the interviewee, it ordered the staff not to be interviewed.

Now the investigation team is focusing on one direction: "We are not only testing options like the foam, but are trying to expand the number of 'suspects'," said on Tuesday Dr. James Hallock, an expert from the US Department of Transportation who heads the team focusing on the engineering analysis. According to him, the video footage left the question "What exactly hit Colombia?" pending Alok said that the purpose of the experiments is to test whether the ice or the insulating material is heavy enough to damage the tiles on the shuttle's wing, or other heat shields.