CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A test conducted Thursday in Texas has provided the first hard evidence directly linking falling insulation foam and damage to a space shuttle wing, according to a spokesman with the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB).

"As a result of the tests at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio today we did see some significant effects," said Lt. Col Woody Woodyard.

The test involved shooting a piece of foam at parts of a shuttle wing that were borrowed from the orbiter Enterprise, which never flew in space.

During the test, a 1.67-pound piece of insulating foam was fired at 779 feet per second -- or 531 mph -- against the forward edge of the wing, simulating the conditions seen during Columbia's launch.

As the foam hit the wing, a so-called T-seal that sits between two leading edge wing sections lifted and moved, leaving a gap in the wing that measured some 22 inches long and varied in width from the thickness of a dime to about a quarter-inch wide.

A chunk of foam seen falling from shuttle Columbia's external tank during launch Jan. 16 struck the left wing's leading edge and a breach in that same area of the wing is believed to have led to the Feb. 1 loss of the spaceplane and its crew.