Washington: The US space shuttle Columbia with Indian-American woman
astronaut Kalpana Chawla and six others broke up over Texas a few minutes
before it was due to land at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and worst
is feared.
Columbia, which was returning to Earth after a 16-day mission, was at an
altitude of 63,000 metres and was cruising at a speed of over 20,000 km per
hour, several times the speed of the sound. It was due to land at 19:46
hours (IST).
Amidst fears that the shuttle, which also had a first-ever Israeli astronaut
Ilan Ramon, could have crashed, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space
Administration) declared an emergency and asked people to avoid coming in
contact with the debris.
The Karnal-born 42-year old Chawla was on her second space mission in the
space of five years.
Search and rescue teams were mobilised in Dallas and Fortworth areas amidst
reports that debris was seen falling and sounds of boom were heard.
NASA had never lost a space crew during landing or the ride back to orbit.
In 1986, space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after lift-off.
Security had been tight for the 16-day scientific research mission fearing
possible terrorist attack because of the presence of the Israeli astronaut.
NASA were yet to declare whether the shuttle had exploded, broken up or
crashed but preliminary reports suggested that the Columbia mission appear
to have ended in a tragedy.
Earlier, mission specialists Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson and Laurel
Clark, commander Rick Husband and pilot William McCool made final
observations of sprites, the electrical activity above the thunderstorms
with the Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment (MEIDEX), NASA said.
It may be recalled that the mission had taken the first pictures of sprites
from space earlier during the mission.
During the mission, which began on January 16, the crew conducted over 80
experiments that included the study of the human body, analyses of growth of
cancer cells and responses of different insects to weightlessness.
Astronauts onboard the spacecraft on January 29 had termed the mission a
success with many experiments performing exceedingly well.
PTI
