Michael Leinbach - Bringing Columbia Home - The Untold Story of a Lost Space Shuttle and Her Crew

Other than one blown tire and one touchdown just short of the runway—fortunately, at the dry lake bed at Edwards—there had never been a problem with the previous 111 shuttle landings. Rick Husband and Willie McCool—two of the world’s best pilots—had practiced the landing approach more than one thousand times in simulators and the Shuttle Training Aircraft. No one worried about their making anything less than a perfect landing.

The entourage of VIPs, crew families, and other support personnel began arriving at the SLF’s midfield park site to await Columbia ’s arrival. NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe sported a red STS-107 polo shirt. Former shuttle astronaut Bill Readdy, who was O’Keefe’s associate administrator, accompanied him at the runway, as did KSC Center Director Roy Bridges (also a former astronaut) and Paul Pastorek, NASA’s chief counsel.

Our landing and recovery team had been working since five o’clock to prepare the service vehicles that would meet Columbia . The “go for de-orbit burn” call was their signal to deploy the convoy to the runway. Once the shuttle landed, the team would “safe” the orbiter by checking for the presence of hazardous propellant fumes. Then they would power down the systems and help the wobblier astronauts into the crew transport vehicle, which was similar to the mobile lounges at some airports.

My launch director role at the runway was largely ceremonial. I would have the honor of welcoming the crew home after they exited the vehicle. The crew members typically spent twenty minutes walking around to inspect the orbiter—its tiles still radiating warmth from reentry—and to thank the KSC workers. The astronauts would say a few words to the press and then board the Astrovan to meet up with their families at the crew quarters. The VIPs and I would congratulate one another on the conclusion of a successful mission. Then we would conduct the traditional postlanding news conference at Kennedy’s press site.

The recovery convoy was deployed as usual, with half the vehicles at one end of the SLF and half at the other end. The shuttle could alter its approach direction any time during the final ten minutes depending on the wind direction, so teams waited at both ends of the runway until the orbiter landed and came to a full stop. This morning’s light breeze from the west-northwest meant that Columbia would most likely make her final approach from the south-southeast.

Astronaut Jerry Ross stood by the convoy command vehicle. With him was astronaut Pam Melroy, the pilot of October 2002’s STS-112 mission. Just back from a trip to England, Melroy was about to take on the role of “Cape Crusader,” an astronaut supporting the crew of the next shuttle mission at KSC. She was at the runway as part of her familiarization training, to remind her of the steps involved in unstrapping the crew and taking over the cockpit from them.

At 54°F, the morning was cool for Florida but not uncomfortable. I scanned the sky and asked the KSC weather officer, John Madura, if the slowly building clouds were a concern. “They’ll be all right,” Madura said. “They’ll come through some clouds, but they’ll see the runway.”

8:54 a.m. EST

During a shuttle mission, NASA always kept a landing and recovery team on standby at Edwards in case the orbiter needed to land there. Robert Hanley was in California with the standby team. Since the shuttle was now headed toward KSC, Hanley was off the hook for the rest of the day. He could watch the proceedings on TV at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, which was on the grounds at Edwards. He would clean up some paperwork and then catch a commercial flight home to Houston.

Hanley knew that the shuttle’s reentry path would take it over Edwards. The ship’s blazing plasma trail would be a spectacular sight in the predawn sky over the high desert. Hanley and a companion pulled their car off the road en route to Dryden. He phoned his mother, who was monitoring Columbia ’s reentry on TV. She gave him updates as the ship’s track approached the California coast. At 8:54 EST, she told him, “It’s coming up! It’s coming up!”

Streaking across the predawn sky at 15,500 mph and at an altitude of 230,000 feet, Columbia was a fast-moving, breathtakingly bright “star” followed by a beautiful glowing pink and magenta trail of ionized oxygen. Transiting the sky in only a minute, the shuttle blazed off to the southeast over Nevada and Utah.

Hanley got back in his car and raced on toward Dryden. He had twenty minutes to get to his work trailer so that he could watch the NASA-TV feed of Columbia ’s landing in Florida.

He did not know that he was among the last of the NASA family to see Columbia in flight.

9:00 a.m. EST

At almost precisely the same time Hanley watched Columbia fly over California, flight controllers in Houston began receiving unusual telemetry readings from the orbiter. Temperature readings from four sensors in Columbia ’s left wing began to rise. Then the sensors went dead within a few seconds of one another at 8:53. At 8:58, as Columbia crossed the New Mexico-Texas line, the tire pressure readings in Columbia ’s left landing gear started to look unusual. Then those sensors also dropped off-line.

Ed Mango was monitoring the flight controllers’ conversations from Kennedy’s Firing Room. He thought it odd that these unrelated sensors would all start failing at about the same time. He became uneasy. Something was not right. The sensors implied unexpected heat inside the wing. However, the status displays showed that the shuttle appeared to be flying its programmed S-turns normally.

Columbia was above Dallas at 8:59:32 when Commander Rick Husband’s communication to Mission Control was cut off mid-word. Mission Control also stopped receiving telemetry from Columbia at that instant.

Occasional communications dropouts were not unusual during reentry, because the ionized plasma sheath that was building around the shuttle sometimes disrupted radio signals. However, this blackout lasted much longer than expected. After a few minutes, Mission Control’s astronaut communicator, Charles Hobaugh, attempted to raise Columbia several times. His repeated calls of “ Columbia , Houston, comm check” went unanswered. Long periods of silence ticked by between his calls.

Mango knew something was seriously wrong when Hobaugh switched to the backup UHF radio system to try to raise the crew. The tracking radar in Florida was also not picking up Columbia . The ship should have appeared over Kennedy’s radar horizon by now.

The first thought that crossed Mango’s mind was: Ballistic entry. Maybe it’s going to try to land at an airport in Louisiana.

9:05 a.m. EST

While we stood beside the runway at Kennedy, residents of East Texas were waking up to a chilly February morning. The sun had not yet burned off the fog enshrouding the dense pine forests of the hilly countryside. Temperatures hovered just above freezing.

Most citizens of that part of the state were unaware that Columbia would be passing overhead on its way to Florida that morning. Many did not even know that NASA had a space shuttle in flight. It simply wasn’t something that concerned them.

That suddenly changed, just after eight o’clock local time.

FBI special agent Terry Lane lay half-asleep in bed at his home in Douglas, thirteen miles west of Nacogdoches. He thought he was dreaming about an unusual noise. He quickly realized that he was awake. The noise was real. A rumbling sound grew constantly louder and continued for several minutes. By the time he got out of bed and opened his front door, the noise had subsided.