Debris strike
During launch, a piece of insulating foam came loose from the Shuttle’s External Tank (ET) and struck the underside of Columbia’s left wing, creating a shower of particles. The incident happened roughly 82 seconds into the flight, but mission engineers only came to be aware of the strike a few days later, while performing a routine analysis of launch films.
Husband and McCool were told about the debris strike on January 23, the eighth day of the mission, but were told that there was “absolutely no concern for reentry” as foam strikes had been observed on previous missions and to no ill effect. Regrettably, this assessment proved to be catastrophically wrong, as the resulting damage to the wing rendered it unable to withstand the extreme temperatures endured during atmospheric re-entry.
