REPORT SYNOPSIS

¶The Columbia Accident Investigation Boardʼs independent investigation into the tragic February 1, 2003, loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia and its seven-member crew lasted nearly seven months and involved 13 Board members, approximately 120 Board investigators, and thousands of NASA and support personnel. Because the events that initiated the accident were not apparent for some time, the investigationʼs depth and breadth were unprecedented in NASA history. Further, the Board determined early in the investigation that it intended to put this accident into context. We considered it unlikely that the accident was a random event; rather, it was likely related in some degree to NASAʼs budgets, history, and program culture, as well as to the politics, compromises, and changing priorities of the democratic process. We are convinced that the management practices overseeing the Space Shuttle Program were as much a cause of the accident as the foam that struck the left wing. The Board was also influenced by discussions with members of Congress, who suggested that this nation needed a broad examination of NASAʼs Human Space Flight Program, rather than just an investigation into what physical fault caused Columbia to break up during re-entry.

¶Findings and recommendations are in the relevant chapters and all recommendations are compiled in Chapter 11.

¶Volume I is organized into four parts: The Accident; Why the Accident Occurred; A Look Ahead; and various appendices. To put this accident in context, Parts One and Two begin with histories, after which the accident is described and then analyzed, leading to findings and recommendations. Part Three contains the Boardʼs views on what is needed to improve the safety of our voyage into space. Part Four is reference material. In addition to this first volume, there will be subsequent volumes that contain technical reports generated by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and NASA, as well as volumes containing reference documentation and other related material.

PART ONE: THE ACCIDENT

¶Chapter 1 relates the history of the Space Shuttle Program before the Challenger accident. With the end looming for the Apollo moon exploration program, NASA unsuccess- fully attempted to get approval for an equally ambitious (and expensive) space exploration program. Most of the proposed programs started with space stations in low-Earth orbit and included a reliable, economical, medium-lift vehicle to travel safely to and from low-Earth orbit. After many failed attempts, and finally agreeing to what would be untenable compromises, NASA gained approval from the Nixon Administration to develop, on a fixed budget, only the transport vehicle. Because the Administration did not approve a low-Earth-orbit station, NASA had to create a mission for the vehicle. To satisfy the Administrationʼs requirement that the system be economically justifiable, the vehicle had to capture essentially all space launch business, and to do that, it had to meet wide-ranging requirements. These

¶sometimes-competing requirements resulted in a compromise vehicle that was less than optimal for manned flights. NASA designed and developed a remarkably capable and resilient vehicle, consisting of an Orbiter with three Main Engines, two Solid Rocket Boosters, and an External Tank, but one that has never met any of its original requirements for reliability, cost, ease of turnaround, maintainability, or, regrettably, safety.

¶Chapter 2 documents the final flight of Columbia. As a straightforward record of the event, it contains no findings or recommendations. Designated STS-107, this was the Space Shuttle Programʼs 113th flight and Columbiaʼs 28th. The flight was close to trouble-free. Unfortunately, there were no indications to either the crew onboard Columbia or to engineers in Mission Control that the mission was in trouble as a result of a foam strike during ascent. Mission management failed to detect weak signals that the Orbiter was in trouble and take corrective action.

¶Columbia was the first space-rated Orbiter. It made the Space Shuttle Programʼs first four orbital test flights. Because it was the first of its kind, Columbia differed slightly from Orbiters Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour. Built to an earlier engineering standard, Columbia was slightly heavier, and, although it could reach the high-inclination orbit of the International Space Station, its payload was insufficient to make Columbia cost-effective for Space Station missions. Therefore, Columbia was not equipped with a Space Station docking system, which freed up space in the payload bay for longer cargos, such as the science modules Spacelab and SPACEHAB. Consequently, Columbia generally flew science missions and serviced the Hubble Space Telescope.

¶STS-107 was an intense science mission that required the seven-member crew to form two teams, enabling round- the-clock shifts. Because the extensive science cargo and its extra power sources required additional checkout time, the launch sequence and countdown were about 24 hours longer than normal. Nevertheless, the countdown proceeded as planned, and Columbia was launched from Launch Complex 39-A on January 16, 2003, at 10:39 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST).

¶At 81.7 seconds after launch, when the Shuttle was at about 65,600 feet and traveling at Mach 2.46 (1,650 mph), a large piece of hand-crafted insulating foam came off an area where the Orbiter attaches to the External Tank. At 81.9 seconds, it struck the leading edge of Columbiaʼs left wing. This event was not detected by the crew on board or seen by ground support teams until the next day, during detailed reviews of all launch camera photography and videos. This foam strike had no apparent effect on the daily conduct of the 16-day mission, which met all its objectives.

¶The de-orbit burn to slow Columbia down for re-entry into Earthʼs atmosphere was normal, and the flight profile throughout re-entry was standard. Time during re-entry is measured in seconds from "Entry Interface," an arbitrarily determined altitude of 400,000 feet where the Orbiter begins to experience the effects of Earthʼs atmosphere. Entry Interface for STS-107 occurred at 8:44:09 a.m. on February 1. Unknown to the crew or ground personnel, because the data is recorded and stored in the Orbiter instead of being transmitted to Mission Control at Johnson Space Center, the first abnormal indication occurred 270 seconds after Entry Interface. Chapter 2 reconstructs in detail the events leading to the loss of Columbia and her crew, and refers to more details in the appendices.

¶In Chapter 3, the Board analyzes all the information available to conclude that the direct, physical action that initiated the chain of events leading to the loss of Columbia and her crew was the foam strike during ascent. This chapter reviews five analytical paths – aerodynamic, thermodynamic, sensor data timeline, debris reconstruction, and imaging evidence – to show that all five independently arrive at the same conclusion. The subsequent impact testing conducted by the Board is also discussed.

¶That conclusion is that Columbia re-entered Earthʼs atmosphere with a pre-existing breach in the leading edge of its left wing in the vicinity of Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC) panel 8. This breach, caused by the foam strike on ascent, was of sufficient size to allow superheated air (probably exceeding 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit) to penetrate the cavity behind the RCC panel. The breach widened, destroying the insulation protecting the wingʼs leading edge support structure, and the superheated air eventually melted the thin aluminum wing spar. Once in the interior, the superheated air began to destroy the left wing. This destructive process was carefully reconstructed from the recordings of hundreds of sensors inside the wing, and from analyses of the reactions of the flight control systems to the changes in aerodynamic forces.

¶By the time Columbia passed over the coast of California in the pre-dawn hours of February 1, at Entry Interface plus 555 seconds, amateur videos show that pieces of the Orbiter were shedding. The Orbiter was captured on videotape during most of its quick transit over the Western United States. The Board correlated the events seen in these videos to sensor readings recorded during re-entry. Analysis indicates that the Orbiter continued to fly its pre-planned flight profile, although, still unknown to anyone on the ground or aboard Columbia, her control systems were working furi- ously to maintain that flight profile. Finally, over Texas, just southwest of Dallas-Fort Worth, the increasing aerodynamic forces the Orbiter experienced in the denser levels of the atmosphere overcame the catastrophically damaged left wing, causing the Orbiter to fall out of control at speeds in excess of 10,000 mph.

¶The chapter details the recovery of about 38 percent of the Orbiter (some 84,000 pieces) and the reconstruction and analysis of this debris. It presents findings and recommendations to make future Space Shuttle operations safer.

¶Chapter 4 describes the investigation into other possible physical factors that may have contributed to the accident. The chapter opens with the methodology of the fault tree

¶analysis, which is an engineering tool for identifying every conceivable fault, then determining whether that fault could have caused the system in question to fail. In all, more than 3,000 individual elements in the Columbia accident fault tree were examined.

¶In addition, the Board analyzed the more plausible fault scenarios, including the impact of space weather, collisions with micrometeoroids or "space junk," willful damage, flight crew performance, and failure of some critical Shuttle hardware. The Board concludes in Chapter 4 that despite certain fault tree exceptions left "open" because they cannot be conclusively disproved, none of these factors caused or contributed to the accident. This chapter also contains findings and recommendations to make Space Shuttle operations safer.

PART TWO: WHY THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED

¶Part Two, "Why the Accident Occurred," examines NASAʼs organizational, historical, and cultural factors, as well as how these factors contributed to the accident.

¶As in Part One, Part Two begins with history. Chapter 5 examines the post-Challenger history of NASA and its Human Space Flight Program. A summary of the relevant portions of the Challenger investigation recommendations is presented, followed by a review of NASA budgets to indicate how committed the nation is to supporting human space flight, and within the NASA budget we look at how the Space Shuttle Program has fared. Next, organizational and management history, such as shifting management systems and locations, are reviewed.

¶Chapter 6 documents management performance related to Columbia to establish events analyzed in later chapters. The chapter begins with a review of the history of foam strikes on the Orbiter to determine how Space Shuttle Program managers rationalized the danger from repeated strikes on the Orbiterʼs Thermal Protection System. Next is an explanation of the intense pressure the program was under to stay on schedule, driven largely by the self-imposed requirement to complete the International Space Station. Chapter 6 then relates in detail the effort by some NASA engineers to obtain additional imagery of Columbia to determine if the foam strike had damaged the Orbiter, and how management dealt with that effort.

¶In Chapter 7, the Board presents its view that NASAʼs organizational culture had as much to do with this accident as foam did. By examining safety history, organizational theory, best business practices, and current safety failures, the report notes that only significant structural changes to NASAʼs organizational curlture will enable it to succeed.

¶This chapter measures the Shuttle Programʼs practices against this organizational context and finds them wanting. The Board concludes that NASAʼs current organization does not provide effective checks and balances, does not have an independant safety program, and has not demonstrated the characteristics of a learning organization. Chapter 7 provides recommendations for adjustments in organizational culture.

¶Chapter 8, the final chapter in Part Two, draws from the previous chapters on history, budgets, culture, organization, and safety practices, and analyzes how all these factors contributed to this accident. The chapter opens with "echoes of Challenger" that compares the two accidents. This chapter captures the Boardʼs views of the need to adjust management to enhance safety margins in Shuttle operations, and reaffirms the Boardʼs position that without these changes, we have no confidence that other "corrective actions" will improve the safety of Shuttle operations. The changes we recommend will be difficult to accomplish – and will be internally resisted.

PART THREE: A LOOK AHEAD

¶Part Three summarizes the Boardʼs conclusions on what needs to be done to resume our journey into space, lists significant observations the Board made that are unrelated to the accident but should be recorded, and provides a summary of the Boardʼs recommendations.

¶In Chapter 9, the Board first reviews its short-term recommendations. These return-to-flight recommendations are the minimum that must be done to essentially fix the problems that were identified by this accident. Next, the report discusses what needs to be done to operate the Shuttle in the mid-term,³³ See John M. Logsdon, "The Space Shuttle Program: A Policy Failure?" Report, 1985. Science, May 30, 1986 (Vol. 232), pp. 1099-1105 for an account of this 14 The quote is from page 2 of the We Deliver brochure, reproduced in decision process. Most of the information and quotes in this section are Exploring the Unknown Volume IV, p. 423. taken from this article. 15 NASA Johnson Space Center, "Technology Influences on the SpaceShow full note to 15 years. Based on NASAʼs history of ignoring external recommendations, or making improvements that atrophy with time, the Board has no confidence that the Space Shuttle can be safely operated for more than a few years based solely on renewed post-accident vigilance.

¶Chapter 9 then outlines the management system changes the Board feels are necessary to safely operate the Shuttle in the mid-term. These changes separate the management of scheduling and budgets from technical specification authority, build a capability of systems integration, and establish and provide the resources for an independent safety and mission assurance organization that has supervisory authority. The third part of the chapter discusses the poor record this nation has, in the Boardʼs view, of developing either a complement to or a replacement for the Space Shuttle. The report is critical of several bodies in the U.S. government that share responsibility for this situation, and expresses an opinion on how to proceed from here, but does not suggest what the next vehicle should look like.

¶Chapter 10 contains findings, observations, and recommendations that the Board developed over the course of this extensive investigation that are not directly related to the accident but should prove helpful to NASA.

¶Chapter 11 is a compilation of all the recommendations in the previous chapters.

PART FOUR: APPENDICES

¶Part Four of the report by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board contains material relevant to this volume organized in appendices. Additional, stand-alone volumes will contain more reference, background, and analysis ma- This Earth view of the Sinai Peninsula, Red Sea, Egypt, Nile River, terials. and the Mediterranean was taken from Columbia during STS-107.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SPACE SHUTTLE

¶The Space Shuttle is one of the most complex machines ever devised. Its main elements – the Orbiter, Space Shuttle Main Engines, External Tank, and Solid Rocket Boosters – are assembled from more than 2.5 million parts, 230 miles of wire, 1,060 valves, and 1,440 circuit breakers. Weighing approximately 4.5 million- pounds at launch, the Space Shuttle accelerates to an orbital velocity of 17,500 miles per hour – 25 times faster than the speed of sound – in just over eight minutes. Once on orbit, the Orbiter must protect its crew from the vacuum of space while enabling astronauts to conduct scientific research, deploy and service satellites, and assemble the International Space Station. At the end of its mission, the Shuttle uses the Earthʼs atmosphere as a brake to decelerate from orbital velocity to a safe landing at 220 miles per hour, dissipating in the process all the energy it gained on its way into orbit.

THE ORBITER

¶The Orbiter is what is popularly referred to as "the Space Shuttle." About the size of a small commercial airliner, the Orbiter normally carries a crew of seven, including a Commander, Pilot, and five Mission or Payload Specialists. The Orbiter can accommodate a payload the size of a school bus weighing between 38,000 and 56,300 pounds depending on what orbit it is launched into. The Orbiterʼs upper flight deck is filled with equipment for flying and maneuvering the vehicle and controlling its remote manipulator arm. The mid-deck contains stowage lockers for food, equipment, supplies, and experiments, as well as a toilet, a hatch for entering and exiting the vehicle on the ground, and – in some instances – an airlock for doing so in orbit. During liftoff and landing, four crew members sit on the flight deck and the rest on the mid-deck.

¶Different parts of the Orbiter are subjected to dramatically different temperatures during re-entry. The nose and leading edges of the wings are exposed to superheated air temperatures of 2,800 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, depending upon re-entry profile. Other portions of the wing and fuselage can reach 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit. Still other areas on top of the fuselage are sufficiently shielded from superheated air that ice sometimes survives through landing.

¶To protect its thin aluminum structure during re-entry, the Orbiter is covered with various materials collectively referred to as the Thermal Protection System. The three major components of the system are various types of heat-resistant tiles, blankets, and the Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC) panels on the leading edge of the wing and nose cap. The RCC panels most closely resemble a hi-tech fiberglass – layers of special graphite cloth that are molded

¶to the desired shape at very high temperatures. The tiles, which protect most other areas of the Orbiter exposed to medium and high heating, are 90 percent air and 10 percent silica (similar to common sand). One-tenth the weight of ablative heat shields, which are designed to erode during re-entry and therefore can only be used once, the Shuttleʼs tiles are reusable. They come in varying strengths and sizes, depending on which area of the Orbiter they protect, and are designed to withstand either 1,200 or 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit. In a dramatic demonstration of how little heat the tiles transfer, one can place a blowtorch on one side of a tile and a bare hand on the other. The blankets, capable of withstanding either 700 or 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, cover regions of the Orbiter that experience only moderate heating.

SPACE SHUTTLE MAIN ENGINES

¶Each Orbiter has three main engines mounted at the aft fuselage. These engines use the most efficient propellants in the world – oxygen and hydrogen – at a rate of half a ton per second. At 100 percent power, each engine produces 375,000 pounds of thrust, four times that of the largest engine on commercial jets. The large bell-shaped nozzle on each engine can swivel 10.5 degrees up and down and 8.5 degrees left and right to provide steering control during ascent.

EXTERNAL TANK

¶The three main engines burn propellant at a rate that would drain an average-size swimming pool in 20 seconds. The External Tank accommodates up to 143,351 gallons of liquid oxygen and 385,265 gallons of liquid hydrogen. In order to keep the super-cold propellants from boiling and to prevent ice from forming on the outside of the tank while it is sitting on the launch pad, the External Tank is covered with a one-inch-thick coating of insulating foam. This insulation is so effective that the surface of the External Tank feels only slightly cool to the touch, even though the liquid oxygen is stored at minus 297 degrees Fahrenheit and liquid hydrogen at minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit. This insulating foam also protects the tankʼs aluminum structure from aerodynamic heating during ascent. Although generally considered the least complex of the Shuttleʼs main components, in fact the External Tank is a remarkable engineering achievement. In addition to holding over 1.5 million pounds of cryogenic propellants, the 153.8-foot long tank must support the weight of the Orbiter while on the launch pad and absorb the 7.3 million pounds of thrust generated by the Solid Rocket Boosters and Space Shuttle Main Engines during launch and ascent. The External Tanks are manufactured in a plant near New

THE SHUTTLE STACK

The first step in assembling a Space Shuttle for launch is stacking the Solid Rocket Booster segments on the Mobile Launch Platform. Eight large hold-down bolts at the base of the Solid Rocket Boosters will bear the weight of the entire Space Shuttle stack while it awaits launch. The External Tank is attached to the Solid Rocket Boosters, and the Orbiter is then attached to the External Tank at three points – two at its bottom and a "bipod" attachment near the nose. When the vehicle is ready to move out of the Vehicle Assembly Building, a Crawler-Transporter picks up the entire Mobile Launch Platform and carries it – at one mile per hour – to one of the two launch pads.

¶Orleans and are transported by barge to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Unlike the Solid Rocket Boosters, which are reused, the External Tank is discarded during each mission, burning up in the Earthʼs atmosphere after being jettisoned from the Orbiter.

SOLID ROCKET BOOSTERS

¶Despite their power, the Space Shuttle Main Engines alone are not sufficient to boost the vehicle to orbit – in fact, they provide only 15 percent of the necessary thrust. Two Solid Rocket Boosters attached to the External Tank generate the remaining 85 percent. Together, these two 149-foot long motors produce over six million pounds of thrust. The largest solid propellant rockets ever flown, these motors use an aluminum powder fuel and ammonium perchlorate oxidizer in a binder that has the feel and consistency of a pencil eraser.

¶A Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) Demonstration Motor being tested near Brigham City, Utah.

¶Each of the Solid Rocket Boosters consists of 11 separate segments joined together. The joints between the segments were extensively redesigned after the Challenger accident, which occurred when hot gases burned through an O-ring and seal in the aft joint on the left Solid Rocket Booster. The motor segments are shipped from their manufacturer in Utah and assembled at the Kennedy Space Center. Once assembled, each Solid Rocket Booster is connected to the External Tank by bolts weighing 65 pounds each. After the Solid Rocket Boosters burn for just over two minutes, these bolts are separated by pyrotechnic charges and small rockets then push the Solid Rocket Boosters safely away from the rest of the vehicle. As the boosters fall back to Earth, parachutes in their nosecones deploy. After splashing down into the ocean 120 miles downrange from the launch pad, they are recovered for refurbishment and reuse.

AN INTRODUCTION TO NASA

¶"An Act to provide for research into the problems of flight within and outside the Earthʼs atmosphere, and for other purposes." With this simple preamble, the Congress and the President of the United States created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on October 1, 1958. Formed in response to the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union, NASA inherited the research-oriented National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and several other government organizations, and almost immediately began working on options for manned space flight. NASAʼs first high profile program was Project Mercury, an early effort to learn if humans could survive in space. Project Gemini followed with a more complex series of experiments to increase manʼs time in space and validate advanced concepts such as rendezvous. The efforts continued with Project Apollo, culminating in 1969 when Apollo 11 landed the first humans on the Moon. The return from orbit on July 24, 1975, of the crew from the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project began a six-year hiatus of American manned space flight. The launch of the first Space Shuttle in April 1981 brought Americans back into space, continuing today with the assembly and initial operations of the International Space Station.

¶In addition to the human space flight program, NASA also maintains an active (if small) aeronautics research program, a space science program (including deep space and interplanetary exploration), and an Earth observation program. The agency also conducts basic research activities in a variety of fields.

¶NASA, like many federal agencies, is a heavily matrixed organization, meaning that the lines of authority are not necessarily straightforward. At the simplest level, there are three major types of entities involved in the Human Space Flight Program: NASA field centers, NASA programs carried out at those centers, and industrial and academic contractors. The centers provide the buildings, facilities, and support services for the various programs. The programs, along with field centers and Headquarters, hire civil servants and contractors from the private sector to support aspects of their enterprises.

THE LOCATIONS

¶NASA Headquarters, located in Washington D.C., is responsible for leadership and management across five strategic enterprises: Aerospace Technology, Biological and Physical Research, Earth Science, Space Science, and Human Exploration and Development of Space. NASA Headquarters also provides strategic management for the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs.

¶The Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, was established in 1961 as the Manned Spacecraft Center and has led the development of every U.S. manned space flight program. Currently, Johnson is home to both the Space Shuttle and International Space Station Program Offices. The facilities at Johnson include the training, simulation, and mission control centers for the Space Shuttle and Space Station. Johnson also has flight operations at Ellington Field, where the training aircraft for the astronauts and support aircraft for the Space Shuttle Program are stationed, and manages the White Sands Test Facility, New Mexico, where hazardous testing is conducted.

¶The Kennedy Space Center was created to launch the Apollo missions to the Moon, and currently provides launch and landing facilities for the Space Shuttle. The Center is located on Merritt Island, Florida, adjacent to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station that also provides support for the Space Shuttle Program (and was the site of the earlier Mercury and Gemini launches). Personnel at Kennedy support maintenance and overhaul services for the Orbiters, assemble and check-out the integrated vehicle prior to launch, and operate the Space Station Processing Facility where components of the orbiting laboratory are packaged for launch aboard the Space Shuttle. The majority of contractor personnel assigned to Kennedy are part of the Space Flight Operations Contract administered by the Space Shuttle Program Office at Johnson.

¶The Marshall Space Flight Center, near Hunstville, Alabama, is home to most NASA rocket propulsion efforts. The Space Shuttle

Projects Office located at Marshall—organizationally part of the Space Shuttle Program Office at Johnson—manages the manufacturing and support contracts to Boeing Rocketdyne for the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), to Lockheed Martin for the External Tank (ET), and to ATK Thiokol Propulsion for the Reusable Solid Rocket Motor (RSRM, the major piece of the Solid Rocket Booster). Marshall is also involved in microgravity research and space product development programs that fly as payloads on the Space Shuttle.

The Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, is the largest rocket propulsion test complex in the United States. Stennis provides all of the testing facilities for the Space

¶Shuttle Main Engines and External Administrator Space Shuttle Program Tank. (The Solid Rocket Boosters are NASA Organization tested at the ATK Thiokol Propulsion facilities in Utah.) Human Exploration & Development of Space

¶Associate Administrator The Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California, has evolved from its

¶International Space Station and aeronautical research roots to become Space Shuttle Programs a Center of Excellence for information Deputy Associate Administrator technology. The Centerʼs primary importance to the Space Shuttle Program, however, lies in wind tunnel and arc-jet Space Shuttle Program Office testing, and the development of thermal Manager, Space Shuttle Program (SSP) Manager, SSP Safety and Mission Assurance

Space Shuttle S&MA Office

¶protection system concepts. Manager, Launch Integration (KSC) Manager, SSP Development

¶Manager, Program Integration Manager, SSP Logistics (KSC)

¶The Langley Research Center, at Hamp- ton, Virginia, is the agencyʼs primary center for structures and materials and Space Shuttle Space Shuttle

¶Space Shuttle Space Shuttle supports the Space Shuttle Program in Administrative Office

Management Integration Office Business Office

(SFOC COTR)

¶KSC Integration Office these areas, as well as in basic aerodynamic and thermodynamic research.

¶THE PROGRAMS Space Shuttle Space Shuttle

Space Shuttle Space Shuttle Space Shuttle Customer and Flight Processing (KSC) Systems Integration Office Projects Office (MSFC) Vehicle Engineering Office Integration Office

¶The two major human space flight efforts within NASA are the Space Shuttle Program and International Space Station Program, both headquartered at Missions Operations Flight Crew Operations Johnson although they report to a Dep- Directorate Directorate

¶Extravehicular Activity uty Associate Administrator at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. The Space Shuttle Program Office at Solid Rocket Booster Reusable Solid Rocket Space Shuttle Main Engine External Tank (ET) Johnson is responsible for all aspects (SRB) Office Motor (RSRM) Office (SSME) Office Office of developing, supporting, and flying the Space Shuttle. To accomplish these tasks, the program maintains large workforces at the various NASA Centers that host the facilities used by the program. The Space Shuttle The Boeing Company, Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power Program Office is also responsible for managing the Space Flight The Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell International was responsi- Operations Contract with United Space Alliance that provides most ble for the development and manufacture of the Space Shuttle Main of the contractor support at Johnson and Kennedy, as well as a small Engines, and continues to support the engines as a part of The Boe- amount at Marshall. ing Company. The Space Shuttle Projects Office at Marshall manages the main engines contract, with most of the work performed in THE CONTRACTORS California, Stennis, and Kennedy.

¶The Space Shuttle Program employs a wide variety of commercial ATK Thiokol Propulsion companies to provide services and products. Among these are some ATK Thiokol Propulsion (formerly Morton-Thiokol) in Brigham of the largest aerospace and defense contractors in the country, in- City, Utah, manufactures the Reusable Solid Rocket Motor seg- cluding (but not limited to): ments that are the propellant sections of the Solid Rocket Boosters.

¶The Space Shuttle Projects Office at Marshall manages the Reus- United Space Alliance able Solid Rocket Motor contract. This is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin that was established in 1996 to perform the Space Flight Operations Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Michoud Operations Contract that essentially conducts the day-to-day operation of the The External Tank was developed and manufactured by Martin Space Shuttle. United Space Alliance is headquartered in Houston, Marietta at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility near New Or- Texas, and employs more than 10,000 people at Johnson, Kennedy, leans, Louisiana. Martin Marietta later merged with Lockheed to and Marshall. Its contract currently runs through 2005. create Lockheed Martin. The External Tank is the only disposable part of the Space Shuttle system, so new ones are always under The Boeing Company, NASA Systems construction. The Space Shuttle Projects Office at Marshall man- The Space Shuttle Orbiter was designed and manufactured by ages the External Tank contract. Rockwell International, located primarily in Downey and Palmdale, California. In 1996, The Boeing Company purchased the aerospace Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control assets of Rockwell International, and later moved the Downey op- The Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC) panels used on the nose eration to Huntington Beach, California, as part of a consolidation and wing leading edges of the Orbiter were manufactured by Ling- of facilities. Boeing is subcontracted to United Space Alliance to Temco-Vought in Grand Prairie, Texas. Lockheed Martin acquired provide support to Orbiter modifications and operations, with work LTV through a series of mergers and acquisitions. The Space Shuttle performed in California, and at Johnson and Kennedy. Program office at Johnson manages the RCC support contract.