The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) is taking a close look at NASA's management of the Space Shuttle programme, focusing on the 1999 appointment of the Boeing-Lockheed Martin United Space Alliance as system operator and the progressive $2.2 billion cut in the annual NASA Shuttle budget since its peak of $5.4 billion in 1992.
In a significant development in the CAIB's work, glassfibre wing leading edge panels 6 and 7, positioned at the same angle as they would be on the wing, suffered a 560 x 6.4mm (22 x 0.25in) gap after a 0.76kg (1.67lb) piece of external tank insulation foam was fired at the panels at 860km/h (535mph). The test was carried out with a nitrogen-pressurised gun at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
Later tests will fire the foam at real carbon-carbon composite wing panels to see if the damage can be replicated. The CAIB may suggest, but not recommend, that a demonstration flight of the modified Space Shuttle be flown before regular operations begin again after the 1 February loss of Columbia and its seven crew during re-entry. Columbia's left wing is believed to have been damaged by foam shed from the external tank during launch.
The CAIB's report, to be issued in August, is likely to recommend a radical improvement in NASA's quality assurance process. Most of the technicians interviewed by the CAIB said they were not satisfied with the number of vehicle inspections performed. "There are a few things that NASA is not laying its eyes on that are critical and we believe that they should be," says CAIB member Duane Deal.
CAIB chairman Harold Gehman describes the new culture as a "change in posture from one in which you had to prove that it was safe to fly to one in which you had to prove that it was unsafe to fly".
NASA treated the external tank foam loss issue as a maintenance problem, not a safety risk. "There is a kind of a lack of appreciation for the total risk involved," says another CAIB member.
Source: Flight International
