SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) -- Investigators are trying to identify an object spotted near Columbia shortly after it reached orbit as they try to determine what caused the shuttle to break apart.
Retired Adm. Harold W. Gehman Jr., who is leading an independent board investigating the disaster, told reporters Sunday that the tracking data from the U.S. Space Command Center in Nebraska could potentially be water that is routinely dumped from the shuttle, which then turned to ice.
"It could well have been an on-orbit piece associated with the shuttle which was supposed to have been there,'' Gehman said. He stressed that the report still needs to be analyzed.
Meanwhile, investigators continued to study a 2-foot section of Columbia's wing and a 300-pound object that appears to be a door panel from one of the shuttle's wheel wells found in Texas.
The wing includes the carbon-covered edge designed to protect Columbia's insulating tiles during re-entry and could provide hard evidence of what went wrong, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said Saturday.
Gehman would not comment Sunday on whether the wing piece was from the shuttle's left side, which could prove significant because Columbia's troubles began in the left wing.
In the shuttle's final eight minutes the morning of Feb. 1, temperatures surged in the left landing gear compartment, and the brake lines began overheating one by one. Sensors began showing overheating across other areas of the left wing and adjoining fuselage before Mission Control lost all contact.
O'Keefe spoke following a memorial service at Louisiana's Barksdale Air Force Base, where pieces of the shuttle are being stored. Searchers have recovered remains of all seven astronauts and more than 12,000 pieces of debris that rained down across two states.
Every possible scenario is still being considered, from the impact of a large chunk of hard insulating foam that hit the shuttle seconds after liftoff Jan. 16, to a strike from a piece of space junk, to a lightning-like electrical phenomenon.
Late Saturday, NASA said the U.S. Strategic Command apparently tracked something flying near Columbia after it had reached orbit. Space agency spokeswoman Eileen Hawley said it was possible the object came from Columbia, but stressed ``this is very raw data'' that had just been turned over to investigators and that it was too early to speculate.
Imagery experts also are poring over a high-resolution photo taken by an Air Force telescope a minute or two before Columbia broke apart during re-entry. Some have suggested the leading edge of the left wing looks as if it could be damaged, and the photo shows a gray streak that could be a fiery plume trailing the wing.
NASA continues to gather evidence through an extensive debris search, centered primarily in Texas and Louisiana.
Meanwhile, about 1,000 people gathered Saturday in a church across the street from the debris search command center in Lufkin to remember the astronauts as a fun-loving but heroic group.
NASA astronaut Jeff Ashby, who recalled visiting the crew's lively table at the NASA Christmas party, said the crew was a generous, caring bunch with a great sense of humor. ``They actually baked cakes for their training instructors on their birthdays,'' he said.
Gov. Rick Perry told the group at the First Baptist church that the astronauts ``remind us that the future belongs to the brave and the bold.''
In Hemphill, searchers also paused to observe the exact moment the shuttle broke up a week before. ``There was total silence in the room, about a minute, and then we went on with life,'' said Marq Webb, U.S. Forest Service spokesman.
advertisement
