USA is following a pre-determined contingency plan as it reacts to the tragic loss of Columbia Saturday morning in the skies over Texas. Curie said the company's employees in Houston and at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida were told to impound flight data and hardware related to the lost orbiter the flight so it can be safeguarded and centralized for investigators probing the accident. He said USA routinely keeps information and other material following each shuttle launch, but is taking extra steps to ensure the integrity and availability of anything connected with the last flight of Columbia.

Meanwhile, officials at Boeing are still waiting for NASA to tell them how or if to modify work Boeing is doing on the international space station, which is closely linked to the space shuttle program, said Dan Beck, a spokesman for Boeing's space and launch operations. Boeing is prime contractor for the space station.

"Our people are continuing to do their jobs on the space station and other [NASA} programs we're involved in," Beck said Feb. 2. "We're waiting for NASA to let us know what their plans are for the space station, the crew up there and the upcoming missions. We stand ready to do what we can, and we have to follow the guidance of our NASA customer as well as our partners at USA."

Boeing will continue to prepare space station hardware at the Kennedy Space Center in anticipation of future shuttle flights as it waits for instructions from NASA, he said. "NASA is in the driver's seat, and when they come to us with a plan, we'll be ready."

Beck said Boeing is prepared to play a key role in helping NASA determine the cause of the Columbia explosion. The company expects to provide staff, information and other resources to the space agency as part of the investigation, he said.