I have been looking again at the re-entry image taken by the USAF in New Mexico and first posted by DrSyn on 8th Feb 2003.
I posted several processed images the next day,
a and
b. The last figure shows the right wing superimposed over the left wing, and what I assumed (and still do) was ablated material ahead of and behind the left wing.
The images above are the original image on the left, followed by the same image limited to 3- and 2- levels of gray respectively (all seen from below), and a photo of STS-107 on the launch ramp (seen from above).
It looks to me as though much of the leading edge of the left wing cuff may be missing, and if ablated material is present perhaps more structure may be missing than appears to be the case in this figure.
Missing material was not evident in my first post because the right wing cuff was superimposed over the left wing cuff hiding the latter. If I had done the superposition both ways the missing areas would have been evident.
This figure shows the 2-level image and its mirror image, and the two superimposed. In superimposing these two images I have made the nose and wingtips coincide. The LH half of the superposition shows the ablated material ahead of and behind the left wing, while the RH half again suggests to me that much of the leading edge of the left wing-cuff may be missing.
So I am inclined to think now (as suggested by DrSyn for different reasons) that burn-through may have been INITIALLY far ahead of the wing and in particular much further forward than where the sweep back of the leading edge changes, and subsequently into the wheel well possibly from inside the wing cuff or fuselage.
If this is so perhaps the Boeing and NASA assessment that the damage to the underwing wing tiles was tolerable may have been correct, and that other damage further forward on the cuff was fatal. The tile hit map in the article titled,
“From the beginning, foam was a concern for NASA” in the Orlando Sentinel linked to by DrSyn shows that most of the hits to STS-87 (more than 300) were on the wing cuff areas and not on the lower wing surface or leading edge. There might have been hits on STS-107 not visible to video cameras on the ground..
What do other people think?
