From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Mon Feb 10 2003 - 10:14:18 MST
A colleague has just passed these URLs on to me. It shows the state of the
sensors
during Columbia's post re-entry phase, together with the routing of the
associated
wiring. It is quite revealing.
< http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/COL_sensor_wire_030207.pdf >
There's also a better image of this ground tracking camera photograph:
< http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/COL_image_030207.html >
It's interesting that sensors in the main undercarriage bay show temperature
anomolies while sensors that have cables that run past the bay simply stop
sending.
The sensors that show normal readings but simply stop suggest a problem with the
wiring, while sensors that go off scale appear to still be functioning until the
sensors themselves fail. The first indicates a problem remote from the sensor,
the
second indicates a problem close to the sensor.
Looks like whatever happened to the wing was around the short section of wiring
that ran across the front and outer side of the bay. And look how the anomolous
sensors start at the back of the bay and work forward. By the time the forward
sensors start showing unexpected readings, they start to fail almost
immediately,
suggesting a sequential aft-to-forward build-up of heat in the bay.
The photo is interesting, but it's a pity the resolution is so poor. Even
accounting for variance in pixel brightness, it *does* look more than just
jitter
in the data. With a bit of looking-sideways-at-the-picture-through-narrowed-eyes
you might just convince yourself that the delineation in the profile matches the
wing leading-edge kink just forward of the 90-degree bend in the sensor cable
run.
Mind you, this is going to have to be studied long and hard by people with much
more experience at interpreting these pictures than me before a definite
conclusion
can be reached (you'd need to compare pictures taken of known objects to
calibrate
the camera, for a start, to see if this image is real and not just a
camera/lens/processing effect).
More useful information might be gleaned from better details of the positions of
the UC sensors in 3D space and a photo of the sensor cable lay-up, which might
indicate which had greater shielding (by virtue of their position in the cable
bundle). This could point to where the cable failures started to occur.
It is another symptom - it still doesn't solidly identify the cause, though.
Still
could be leading edge failure with progressive burn-through of the front or side
of
the wheel well, undercarriage bay door loss or even the failure of the upper
skin.
Cheers,
Robin Hill, STEAMY BESS, Brough, East Yorkshire.
-- Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com > Alternate: < fortean1@msn.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >[Vietnam veterans, Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]
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