Final frame
Video taken from inside the cabin during re-entry helped the investigators to piece together a timeline of events. The frame above is the last discernible video image from the Columbia mission. The Shuttle disintegrated over the course of 24 seconds, with depressurization, along with the astronauts’ “loss of consciousness and cessation of respiration,” happening shortly after 9:00 a.m. ET, according to the SCSIIT report. The crew module was 26.5 miles (42.7 km) above the surface at the moment of its destruction.
