It didn't strike the wing on its way down, rather the engine followed the clear path of the airflow of the wing, up and over the top of it, and then down below the tail.
This was important evidence because the only way the pylon fitting could strike the wing's mounting bracket in the observed manner was if the bolts that held the pylon to the wing were removed and if the engine was being supported by something other than the aircraft.
The hole was probably created when a piece of insulating foam fell from the external fuel tank and struck the wing about 81 seconds into launching.
Investigators have already concluded that a hole in the shuttle's left wing let in the superheated gases that destroyed the wing, and they knew that a piece of foam struck the wing on launching.
After intensive analysis of the video record of the Columbia's liftoff, engineers now believe that the foam that struck the wing was about 1,240 cubic inches, weighing about 2 pounds, traveling about 775 feet a second.
21, five days after the foam had broken loose during liftoff, and some 30 engineers from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and its aerospace contractors were having the first formal meeting to assess potential damage when it struck the wing.
So far, it seems that the hole was caused by a piece of insulation foam striking the wing after take-off.Spreading SARSChina, the source of the deadly SARS outbreak, reported that the number of known cases had risen to 4,560, with 219 deaths.
The breach was initiated by a piece of insulating foam that separated from the left bipod ramp of the external tank and struck the wing in the vicinity of the lower half of reinforced carbon-carbon Panel 8 at 81.9 seconds after launch.
The engineer who attended the meeting said that one of the NASA managers who will be removed from management is Lambert Austin, who had come under criticism for passing along a flawed analysis by Boeing engineers of the possible damage caused by the piece of insulating foam that struck the wing.
The very first tests of the system yielded interesting information: The bird's angle of attack, an aerodynamic term for the angle at which air strikes the wing (or vice versa, depending on your frame of reference), was absurdly high.
As recounted by James Glanz and John Schwartz on Friday in The Times, some 30 space engineers became concerned about Columbia's safety after watching films that showed a piece of foam break away during liftoff and strike the left wing at a spot that could not be seen.
