Columbia Breakup in real time.

Compiled from a number of different sources and synchronized.

[scottmunley]

I made this to help me understand the sequence of events, I have a lot more in my main video about the Columbia disaster:

[kevinking]

finally. after over 20 years of review-upon-review, someone has put together (for the public to see) the actual trajectories. outstanding overlays of events, as the seconds count down. the real-time drop-out of the sensors shown graphically, with audio matched-in, is stunning.

[HailAnts]

A couple things.

All the controllers knew about and had studied the foam strike at launch. So they knew what anomalies to look for during re-entry, anything in the left wing.

So as soon as the guy said that he had lost four temp sensors in the left inner and outer elevons, every controller thought, 'Oh shit!' They knew what that meant, there's a hole in the spacecraft.

Also significant, when the same controller said, "No commonality" that confirmed that it was a *_big_* hole.

No commonality means they are completely separate, redundant sensors, not connected in any way by wires or hydraulics. Meaning the only way they could fail together was from outside, physical forces being applied to them.

At this point the controllers are basically just praying that the Shuttle will hold together for a few more minutes, as there is absolutely nothing they can do.

Also note that even if it had stayed together a little longer, they were still looking at an aborted landing. The Shuttle cannot survive a landing with flat tires, the crew would have had to do an emergency bailout. Survivable, but still pretty dangerous..

[yesitssarahbby]

3 words you never want to hear a flight director say
"Lock the doors"

[GumballAstronaut]

I didn’t realize how soon the breakup was after they lost comms…that’s far more terrifying than I had ever imagined… RIP Columbia and her crew

[intiorozco]

"You definitely don't want to be outside now"
... That hit hard.

[spaceflight]

A key clue is found at the 9:40 mark, when the tire pressure began to rise at an unexpectedly high rate. This indicated that the plasma stream had entered the left side wheel well and was beginning to heat the tires.
Each tire contains 300 psia of dry nitrogen. Nitrogen is an inert gas, but the expansion force was equal to 2.5 sticks of dynamite apiece.

[waynewilliams]

How calm the team stayed while reporting temp readings and in their minds hoping it was instrument problems astounds me. Although the flight Directors mannerisms and facial expressions told a different outcome was soon to be realized. It hurts as much now as it did live, with exception of how much faster the craft broke up. God bless the crew and families!!

[redrover]

I saw this happen. I was goose hunting in a winter-wheat field, SW of Ardmore, OK, looking SW and spotted the first tiny "glow" thinking it was a plane, then some space junk, to "what is that?". I watched from the SW all the way to the multiple contrails as it broke up then finally disappeared under the SE horizon. It appeared that large pieces began to break off the left side. More and more pieces broke off, following the main body of the craft but gradually the larger mass outpaced the debris. Every piece of debris was making it's own contrail. That early morning while going to hunt, I was listening to NPR report about the shuttle mission and it's return. I didn't know what happened until I got back home. I msg'd NASA and they asked for a written report about what I had seen. I went back to my hunting spot, shot several mag. compass azimuths, wrote everything I saw, and never heard from NASA.

[mh]

Just want to say that i flew with Rick Husband at Moody AFB in 1984. All respect to him. He was a good pilot and a pure soul.

[dbillings]

Retired Aerospace Engineer here ... well done. So sad to see the temps sensors, and then tire pressures, start to fail. I have deorbited satellites (non-manned) and the eerie feeling as they re-enter and the attitude control tries so desperately to keep the vehicle within limits.

[gordonslippy]

I gathered my young children around that Saturday morning and watched it live on NASA TV. Having watched many landings before, I knew something was wrong when they began mentioning sensors going off scale low.
The call for UHF comm check was chilling, and when they had no radar track at Merritt Island I knew it was over.
It was a hard day.
The book "Comm Check" is an excellent read and quite condemning of the NASA culture which had normalized performance deviation from spec, simply because the flights turned out OK.
Those who realized this attitude would lead to disaster were silenced.
Both the Challenger and Columbia accidents were completely avoidable. They were not a failure of technology, but a failure of people.

[NorthernChev]

I was sitting in my home office in Texas that morning, and heard the sonic boom from the Shuttle as it broke up entering the atmosphere. It was a warm(ish) morning and I had the balcony door open to let the cat out on the deck. When I heard, what I first thought was, a roller door on the back of a large delivery truck. Confused as to why a delivery truck would be at my property, I went out on the balcony to see what it was. There was nobody around. But that sound was so strange and unrecognizable at the time I had no idea what had happened. Thinking nothing of it, I went back inside. I turned the News on, for background noise, and later found the Shuttle had broken up “above” me that morning.

[FredPauling]

The flight director's body language filled me with a deep sense of foreboding and sadness. I can't imagine how horrifying this was for everyone. Hoping the families have healed.

[leokimvideo]

So incredibly difficult to watch, they went down in flames knowing the only outcome is disaster, brave to the very end.

[nrwinner]

“Columbia, Houston - comm check” is absolutely chilling.

[ryyyan]

For quite a while I have wondered if anything existed showing what the breakup looked like up close, synced up with location, time, and radio comms. Now that I know it exists, it's even more chilling. The absolute speed it was all over is what I can't get over. From the last transmission, "Roger, uh, but-" at 11:56 in the video, to 12:05 or so when the left wing finally stalls out and the roll alarm sounds, just under 9 seconds. I can only imagine how much nastier those last comms would have been if not for the TDRS blackout and assuming excessive G-loads wouldn't have knocked everyone out already. It all feels a lot more in perspective now. Boy, does it sting.

[rcketplumber]

I watched the reentry from the flight line in Mojave with a clear view to the north. I hadn't seen a twilight shuttle entry before and had no reference for how much plasma sheath should surround it, but it sure seemed big. Through binoculars I saw a spark falling behind and varying in brightness- at the time I thought it might be ice falling off a vent. Little did I know... it may have been debris #6.

[luisluiscunha]

I live in Portugal. Was born in dec73. The Columbia filled my child's imagination: my favourite spaceship in my whole infancy was named "Columbia". This ship meant so much to me. Still does. Having lived the Challenger trauma, I never understood why so little relative emphasis was put on the loss of the Columbia. Thank you for opening my soul to the Cosmos, talented Engineers, Scientists and Control and thank you brave Astronauts.

[DeltaR]

Rest in Peace to the crew of the space shuttle Columbia. Your contributions to our world will never be forgotten.