Why Did The Columbia Crash?

On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle titled Columbia disintegrated upon reentry. People watched in horror as what seemed to be a meteor came falling from the sky while breaking apart over Louisiana. At exactly 8:59 EST over Texas and Louisiana, the Space Shuttle Columbia entered earth’s atmosphere to begin reentry. As it entered the dead zone, nobody could contact the shuttle as it began to disintegrate around the crew. When it entered orbit again it exploded and fell in Nacogdoches. The craft was supposed to land in Houston at 8:15. However, due to sudden damage to the wing of the craft, it started to explode over Louisiana.

Not the first time.

This was not the first Space Shuttle to explode. In 1986, while taking off, the space shuttle
The cause of the accident was a piece of foam that had fallen off the Shuttle's external fuel tank during launch. The foam struck the left wing of the shuttle, causing serious damage that ultimately led the vehicle to explode when it reentered Earth's atmosphere. This means that the heavy foam from the fuel tank fell before it even left earth. So the question is, how did nobody notice it during takeoff, or why did the computer not warn the astronauts about the damage?

When did the foam break and how it wasn’t
It would only stay temporarily. What differences became a part of later Space shuttles due to Columbia?

Later space shuttles had to have extra parachutes, more panels, and better supports on them before launch. Each shuttle had to be equipped with a computer that would detect the velocity and damage to the shuttle and an automatically deploying parachute that would parachute at a specific level above the ground. Many ships were grounded for three years following the incident as NASA began its research on the many different applications needed for the ships to become safe enough to fly to space again. The ships were retired after another 50 years or so of being in service.

When did the Space shuttle program at NASA end?

The Space Shuttle program finished with its last mission, STS-135 flown by Atlantis, in July 2011, retiring the final Shuttle in the fleet. The Space Shuttle program formally ended on August 31, 2011. This means that all of the remaining shuttles were donated to museums or destroyed for money. Many of the remaining ships were donated to museums across the United States. One such ship is in the National Aviation