STS-107 Mission after the Mission: Recovery of Data from the Debris of Columbia

Abstract

STS-107 was a 16-day, dedicated research mission that included over 80 experiments, spanning many disciplines including biology, physics, chemistry, and earth sciences, including many student experiments. The mission was considered a resounding success until February 1, 2003, when tragedy struck the Columbia and her crew as she re-entered the atmosphere over Texas. During the mission, approximately one third of the overall data was obtained but much more was stored in the flight hardware systems. This paper documents a new set of STS-107 experiment objectives, a "mission after the mission," in which several experiment teams attempted, and, in many cases succeeded, to recover data from their flight hardware, now debris. A description of the data recovery efforts is included for these five experiment facilities: Combustion Module-2, Critical Viscosity of Xenon-2, Commercial Instrumentation Technology Associates Biomedical Experiments-2, Biological Research in Canisters-14, and Commercial Protein Crystal Growth