Pieces were recovered from Texas and the neighbouring states of Louisiana and Arkansas. Nasa then carried out the largest-ever ground search ever undertaken, to try and find pieces of the Shuttle. There was a chilling silence for some 20 minutes before the truth dawned 38 miles above Texas, the Shuttle had broken apart, and all seven crew were dead. Just before 0900 EST, as the Shuttle re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere 200,000 feet above the United States, Mission Control suddenly lost contact. The crew carried out the subsequent mission unaware their return to Earth was already doomed. A piece of foam insulation the size of a briefcase fell off the spacecraft’s external fuel tank, cracking some of the heat-resistant tiles on the Shuttle’s left wing. ![]() Their fate had been sealed 16 days before, when the Shuttle lifted off from Cape Canaveral. Now, they donned their pressure suits and prepared for a return to Earth. The crew of seven – five men and two women – had carried out some 80 experiments during their time in Earth’s orbit. ![]() Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.On 1 February 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia began its descent back to Earth after a 16-day mission. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. The image in this article has been enhanced to improve contrast. ![]() Farther towards the horizon, the Aegean and Black Seas are also visible.įeatured astronaut photograph STS118-E-9469 was acquired by the STS-118 crew on August 19, 2007, with a Kodak 760C digital camera using a 28 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory at Johnson Space Center. Other visible features of the southeastern Mediterranean region include the toe and heel of Italy’s “boot” at image lower left, and the western coastlines of Albania and Greece, which extend across image center. The entire Space Station is visible at image bottom center, set against the backdrop of the Ionian Sea approximately 330 kilometers below it. The sensor head of the Orbiter Boom Sensor System is visible at image top left. This oblique (looking at an angle from vertical, rather than straight down towards the Earth) image was acquired almost one hour after late inspection activities had begun. The late inspection is performed using sensors mounted on the Orbiter Boom Sensor System, and the goal is to assess whether micrometeorite or orbiting debris have compromised the Thermal Protection System of the Shuttle while it was docked with the International Space Station. Endeavour had undocked from the International Space Station, and the crew had begun late inspection of the orbiter’s Thermal Protection System (wing leading edges, nosecap, and belly tiles) prior to landing. The image was acquired by an astronaut through one of the crew cabin windows, looking back over the length of the Shuttle. The crew of the Space Shuttle Endeavour took this spectacular image of the International Space Station during the STS-118 mission, August 8–21, 2007.
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