Shuttle Investigators to Look at Sound Data
From Times Wire Reports
Recordings made by instruments sensitive to sound below the threshold of human hearing may help investigators build a timeline of any uncharacteristic movements made by the space shuttle Columbia minutes before it broke apart, scientists say.
The instruments also captured an explosion high over Texas that one scientist said could have been Columbia’s cabin rupturing.
As parts of Columbia began to break off, the flight behavior of the spacecraft would have changed. Those changes would have generated different patterns of sound waves, compared with previous shuttle flights. The patterns, recorded by instruments in Texas, Nevada and elsewhere in the West, are being examined as part of the probe.
