Panel focuses on spurt of flame

Press, 3 February 1986, Page 6

Panel focuses on spurt of flame

NZPA-AP Cape Canaveral

The space shuttle Challenger’s investigating board said yesterday that film of the last 15 seconds of the spacecraft’s flight

showed an unusual spurt of flame in the right solid rocket booster.

A N.A.S.A. spokesman, Hugh Harris, said that neither the board nor the space agency would spec-

ulate about what that observation meant.

But other sources have said the tongue of flame, clearly visible in the pictures, might have burned into the adjacent fuel tank

and caused the explosion.

“We don’t want the quick answer, we want the right answer,” Mr Harris said.

He called the films of the 15 second period only "an area of interest — not the only area of interest.”

The films were taken from Playalinda Beach, just north of the Challenger’s launching pad, and show a different angle from the official films released earlier. N.A.S.A. said earlier yesterday rockets that pulled spent or used solid rocket boosters away from the space shuttle had been found unfired. That meant Challeger’s seven astronauts had had no warning their ship was going to explode. If the commander, Francis Scobee, had been alerted to impending dan-. ger he would have hit a “ditch button”, which would fire the booster separation motors. “The booster separation motors were never activated," N.A.S.A. said. Mr Harris said that the pictures were not .the most unique thing seen by the investigating board. “I only know it is unusual. That Is the engineering judgment of the board,” he said. The brief N.A.S.A. state-

ment did not deal with reports in the<.news media that the right rocket booster had had a small drop of pressure just before the explosion.

That would be consistent . with a: leak, either from between the four segments that make up the rocket or‘with a burn through Its side. “The board is charged with the responsibility of Investigating this accident and they are gathering together all of the data from this and . other cameras,” Mr Harris said. “This is what they are prepared to release at this time. This is one area they are looking at.”

N.A.S.A. confirmed earlier yesterday that the nose of one of the boosters, complete with parachute and four separation motors, had been recovered from the Atlantic. Because the two boosters separated cleanly at the moment Challenger exploded, there had been speculation that Mr Scobee might have hit the emergency button. If he had managed that a few seconds before the blast the shuttle might have been able to make a water landinga very risky procedure that might still have been fatal to the astronauts.