CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Debris from shuttle Columbia's left wing has been positively identified by engineers at the Kennedy Space Center as coming from an area on the space plane that is at the center of the accident investigation.
But other than identifying the part, which is reported to be in relatively good condition, neither NASA nor the Columbia Accident Investigation Board could as yet determine the fragment's significance, spokespeople from both organizations said Wednesday.
"It's too early to know what it means, if anything," said board spokesman Terry Williams.
The part is known as carrier panel No. 6 and acts as a seal between a reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) panel bolted to the front of the wing and the rest of the wing surface.
The carrier panels are made of aluminum and are about four inches wide and 22 inches long. Bonded to one flat side are several three-inch-thick black heat protection tiles.
There are carrier panels for each of the 22 RCC panels on each wing.
Investigators are looking hard at the area surrounding carrier panel No. 6 as it is here where insulating foam from the external tank is believed to have fallen and struck Columbia's left wing some 82 seconds after launch Jan. 16.
The next day military radar tracked what might have been a carrier panel floating free of the shuttle -- debris that burned up in Earth's atmosphere a couple of days later.
Sensors recorded that dangerous hot gas made it inside the wing during re-entry, ultimately leading to the failure of the wing and the loss of vehicle and crew over Texas on Feb. 1.
Meanwhile, parts from all three of Columbia's Rocketdyne main engines were recovered Tuesday from two craters at Fort Polk in central Louisiana, ending NASA's search for shuttle debris in the area, said NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries.
"This is the last of it that we know of,'' Humphries said.
The site of the debris was among the farthest east any Columbia fragments have been found so far. The engine parts traveled farther east because they were among the densest, heaviest parts of the aircraft, Humphries said.
Workers recovered at least two of Columbia's three engine powerheads, which is plumbing that moves fuel-rich hot gas from the high pressure turbopumps into the main combustion chamber.
One of the turbopumps also was found. Each main engine has a high pressure fuel turbopump and a high pressure oxidizer turbopump, devices that help move the supercold propellant through the engines at the correct flow rate and pressure.
Once the debris is prepared for transport, it will be taken to Barksdale Air Force Base near Shreveport, then moved here to KSC for formal identification, analysis and eventual burial.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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