Material fell off shuttle on Day 2

US defence Department radar shows an object or material coming off the shuttle Columbia as it orbited Earth about one day after its January ...

US defence Department radar shows an object or material coming off the shuttle Columbia as it orbited Earth about one day after its January 16 launch from Florida, NASA officials said on Saturday.

This kind of signal could represent a meteorite impact, but NASA spokesman Kyle Herring, in Houston, said its true significance is not yet known. ‘‘The Department of Defence has provided the report to NASA, and we’re assessing it.’’

Investigators are looking closely at the shuttle’s inflight schedule, he said, in order to determine whether the debris might have come from something benign,

such as a routine dump of waste water or other supplies. They are also looking at data from instruments aboard the shuttle that might have registered a sudden vibration or other change in inflight conditions that could have resulted from an impact. The material appeared to leave the shuttle at a rate of about 5 meters per second, according to a source cited by CBS News.

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A report earlier had warned of possible serious damage from a meteroid impact on the leading edge of a shuttle wing, and such an impact was already on the investigators’ list of potential causes of the accident.

NASA and Defence officials have long been concerned about the hazards of space junk. The US Space Command tracks some 9,000 pieces of manmade debris from defunct spacecraft and the like. However, when encountered at orbital velocities typically around 17,500 mph, a tiny paint chip can leave a gouge.

Meanwhile, the hunt for wreckage from Columbia intensified in the Rolling Hills and dense forest that stretch from Nacogdoches east to the Louisiana border, as NASA officials moved hundreds of additional searchers into Sabine County to look for clues. (LATWP)