‘Lot of Burned Material’ : Finding Rocket’s Failure Point Unlikely, NASA Says

There is little hope of finding the exact point where flame broke through the solid rocket booster of the space shuttle Challenger because it would have been destroyed by the 6,000-degree plume, National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials said Tuesday.

Salvage crews have already recovered a major segment of the booster which came from a point on the opposite side from the area where a puff of smoke and a burst of flame erupted an instant after the doomed Challenger’s engines ignited Jan. 28.

Because the destruction of the rocket resulted in “a lot of burned material,” said Col. Edward O’Connor, the Air Force officer in charge of salvage operations in Florida, “the exact spot where it failed will not be available to us.”

Briefing reporters Tuesday at Kennedy Space Center, O’Connor said it appears that the booster plunged to the sea in three major pieces after it was intentionally blown apart to prevent it from hitting an inhabited area after the spacecraft exploded.

Rocket Casing Found

With weather much improved, salvage crews were preparing Tuesday for an attempt to raise another large piece of rocket casing, this one measuring about 10 feet by 10 feet and weighing about 2,500 pounds. O’Connor said it is also believed to be from the right booster, probably from a point above the area where the failure occurred.

The area is about 35 miles northeast of the launch pad from which Challenger lifted off. The water at that point is about 600 feet deep.

O’Connor said Tuesday that the sonar search of the 420-square-mile salvage area is 90% complete and predicted that it will be finished by April 8. NASA has a deadline of April 18 to report its findings on the cause of the accident to the presidential commission investigating the tragedy.