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Columbia Disaster

Robiel Ghebrekidan

SYSM 6309: Advanced Requirements Engineering Summer 2013

6/22/2013

Table of Contents

• 1. Overview
• 2. Cause of the Failure
• 3. Corrective Action
• 4. Requirement Issues



Columbia Disaster

• · Space shuttle Columbia, re-entering Earth's atmosphere at 10,000 mph, disintegrates
• · As a result:
• - All 7 astronauts are killed
• - $4 billion spacecraft is destroyed
• - Debris scattered over 2000 sq-miles of Texas
• - NASA grounds shuttle fleet for 2-1/2 years



Cause of Failure

• · Insulating foam separates from external tank 81 seconds after lift-off
• · Foam strikes underside of left wing, breaches thermal protection system (TPS) tiles
• · Superheated air enters wing during re-entry, melting aluminum struts
• · Aerodynamic stresses destroy weakened wing



Cause of Failure

• · Many times chunks of insulating foam broke off at launch and dinged the thermal protection system
• · NASA had observed it so many times on orbiters that did return safely, they didn't consider it a serious problem



Cause of Failure

• · Foam strike detected in launch videos on Day 2
• · Engineers requested inspection by crew or remote photo imagery to check for damage
• · Mission managers discounted foam strike significance
• · No actions were taken to confirm shuttle integrity or prepare contingency plans



Earlier Shuttles

• · January 28, 1986, the shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds into its launch, killing all seven crew members
• Forward · Investigation reveals that a solid rocket booster (SRB) joint failed, allowing flames to impinge on the external fuel tank



Earlier Shuttles

• · Liquid hydrogen tank explodes, ruptures liquid oxygen tank
• · Resulting massive explosion destroys the shuttle



Corrective Actions

• · NASA created a contingency plans to launch a rescue for future mission
• · Released a report outlining what it had learned from the Columbia accident with regard to crew safety and survivability for future spaceflight.



Requirement Issue

• - Both disasters happened because of both physical and human factors.
• - Each successful mission reinforced the perception that foam shedding was unavoidable…either unlikely to jeopardize safety or an acceptable risk.
• - Foam shedding, which violated the shuttle design basis, had been normalized



Bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster

http://www.space.com/19436-columbia-disaster.html




Questions