NASA Mishap Response Status #08<br /><br />NASA Mishap Response Status Report #08<br />Monday, Feb. 24, 2003 - 5 p.m. CST<br />Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas<br /><br />Helped by sunny but breezy weekend weather in Texas and Louisiana, ground<br />searchers continued to recover debris believed to be from Space Shuttle<br />Columbia. Among the finds were what was thought to be a main landing gear<br />strut, additional parts of the left wing and a 4- by 6-foot piece of<br />mid-body sidewall.<br /><br />Other items included what appeared to be a piece of Orbital Maneuvering<br />System tankage and protective heat-resistant tiles.<br /><br />More than 2,400 ground searchers were in the field Sunday, in 20-member<br />teams based in the Texas towns of Nacogdoches, Hemphill, Palestine and<br />Corsicana. An additional 440 people were training for search activities.<br />Methodical ground grid searches continued to be productive in aiding in the<br />discovery of smaller pieces of shuttle debris.<br /><br />High winds hampered air and water searches during the weekend. The addition<br />of another Navy team brought the total number of dive teams to eight. Other<br />dive teams represented the Houston and Galveston police departments, the<br />Texas Department of Public Safety and the Environmental Protection Agency.<br />Despite the wind, searchers were able to recover pieces of tile from Lake<br />Bardwell near Waxahachie, Texas.<br /><br />The effort to consolidate three search coordination field offices (Barksdale<br />AFB, La., the Joint Reserve Base (Carswell Field), Texas, and Hemphill,<br />Texas) into the main facility at Lufkin, Texas, progressed over the weekend.<br /><br />Investigators searched sites near Caliente, Nev., for what could be a piece<br />of Columbia debris tracked by air traffic control radar during the time of<br />the spacecraft's Feb. 1 descent over California and Nevada. While some<br />material was recovered in the area, none was confirmed as coming from<br />Columbia.<br /><br />Similar work to narrow the possible locations of other debris in the U.S.<br />Southwest continued; although, no new areas were identified for further<br />investigation. As of late Monday, no shuttle debris was confirmed west of<br />the Littlefield, Texas. area.<br /><br />For more information about NASA on the Internet, see:<br /><br />www.nasa.gov