2 Columbia related items: ASTRONAUT SPOUSES & CHILDREN RELEASE STATEMENT The Astronaut Spouses Group released the following statement on Friday, Feb. 7. http://www.nasa.gov/HP_news_03060_bb_030208.html [From February 10, 2003 issue of AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY] Spectral Analysis May Offer Columbia Clues By DAVID A. FULGHUM and FRANK MORRING, JR./WASHINGTON U.S. intelligence agencies operate ships and aircraft designed to analyze the glowing plasma that surrounds foreign spacecraft as they reenter the atmosphere, and this very specialized technology may help provide clues to the destruction of the Columbia space shuttle. Air Force Maj. Gen. (ret.) Michael C. Kostelnik, NASA's deputy associate administrator for international space station and space shuttle, said he expects the mission response team and, in particular, the action investigation team led by Adm. (ret.) Harold W. Gehman, Jr., to avail itself of Defense Dept. spectral analysis expertise to help "get every perspective on this we can" as the investigative effort gears up. Cobra Judy ships and the Air Force 55th Wing's RC-135 Cobra Ball aircraft have tracked the missile tests of other countries for decades from hundreds of miles away by gathering, among other details, the heat and light signature of spacecraft. Spectral analysis of that data has allowed intelligence analysts to detail the capabilities, as well the successes and failures, of other countries' space programs. "We know how [various] composites and metals react to the intense heat, and we can do analysis, for example, of carbon peeling off a reentry vehicle or asbestos burning," said a long-time intelligence official. Materials analysis of any object reentering the atmosphere is done by plotting wavelengths of radiance (changing colors in the re-entering vehicle's fiery trail) against altitude and time. Initially, it was thought that detailing Columbia's last minutes would be limited by the visual-light film used to record the spacecraft's breakup. The reason for the limitation is that a significant portion of the data that allows the U.S. to analyze the results of test flights and materials makeup of foreign spacecraft is gathered in parts of the light spectrum, particularly the infrared, that aren't picked up by conventional video cameras. However, Kostelnik said, an AH-64 Apache crew at Ft. Hood, Tex., was watching the reentry and recorded it using the attack helicopter's forward looking infrared system sensor. The film has been sent to NASA for review. Measurement and signature intelligence specialists at the National Intelligence Center are already at work on other available data, according to Pentagon officials. Satellite-based sensors also may have recorded the event, but it is believed that most of the intelligence-gathering spacecraft that could provide the necessary kind of spectral detail were tasked by national agencies to look at other parts of the world. "We might get lucky and have had something [overhead] that could analyze the materials and record the timing of events, but there's generally not much coverage in this hemisphere," the intel official said. � 2003 The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.