The loss of the lives of those seven astronauts caused shock and sympathy in equal measures, transcending political boundaries across the globe. The failure of a rocket is not as uncommon an occurrence in the commercial aerospace sector as it is in manned spaceflight - indeed employees here in Devtec suffered the deep disappointment of seeing the European launcher Ariane5 explode over the Atlantic in late December 2002, caused by problems in its new Vulcain2 engine on which we had designed and manufactured several components. Watching and dealing with the aftermath of such a failure is tough, but for the engineers working on manned space flight such a failure has ramifications unimaginable to commercial aerospace engineers. So what caused the accident? NASA's investigation currently suspects a hole in the left wing heat shield caused by an impact, allowed hot plasma to enter the wing, causing a loss of integrity of the wing and ultimately the loss of the orbiter itself. Did a piece of polystyrene from the fuel tank hitting either the wing leading edge or underside of the wing cause the ensuing disintegration of the shuttle during re-entry? Was it a problem with the heat shield tiles, which were regularly damaged during previous shuttle missions?
展开▼
