25 Years Ago, NASA Almost A Lost A Shuttle

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Twenty-five years ago, Space Shuttle Columbia launched the Chandra X-ray observatory and nearly ended in catastrophe. As the then-ascent flight director John Shannon observed: "Yikes. We don't need another one of those."

Space Shuttle Columbia was launched from Kennedy Space Center's LC-39B on the morning of July 23, 1999. Two previous launch attempts, on July 20 and 22, were scrubbed because of a faulty sensor and bad weather.

The launch was third time lucky in more ways than one.

Unknown to the Shuttle's crew and flight controllers, Columbia contained several flaws - as do all vehicles - some of which were about to make their presence felt during the launch phase of the mission. A bit of wiring within the payload bay had chafed against a burred screw head, a single gold-plated pin was slightly loose in a deactivated Liquid Oxygen (LOX) post in the main injector of the right engine, and the main center engine had a slight bias in pressure measurements on its B channel that would only show when the engine reached full throttle.

Oh, and there was a slightly loose connection on a hydraulic pressure sensor on the right solid rocket booster (SRB).

The team was blissfully unaware of any of this.

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