Military to Photograph NASA Shuttles
Posted on: Friday, 28 March 2003, 06:00 CST
By TED BRIDIS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. military has agreed to a request by NASA to regularly capture detailed satellite images of space shuttles in orbit. The move comes amid questions about why no such pictures were taken of Columbia.
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe on Friday announced the agreement with the National Imagery and Mapping Agency "to employ NIMA assets during targets of opportunity" without NASA having to make a specific request for the imaging.
The deal will make available to NASA free or at very low cost detailed pictures of the shuttle during future missions.
The agreement was formalized in a letter sent earlier this week from O'Keefe to Lt. General James R. Clapper, the director of NIMA.
The board investigating the Columbia accident has already indicated it will recommend that NASA push for better coordination between the space agency and military offices in charge of satellites and telescopes.
NASA is still working out details about which of its employees will have adequate security clearances to view the sensitive images that the military's top satellites might take of shuttles.
Some NASA engineers had argued during Columbia's 16-day mission that photographs of possible damage to the spacecraft's left wing might have helped determine whether the shuttle could return safely.
Before the Columbia disaster, NASA turned down an offer by the mapping agency to have its satellites take pictures of the shuttle, and NASA officials withdrew another unofficial request for Air Force telescopes to take pictures of Columbia.
In announcing the agreement Friday, O'Keefe said he was not making a decision about whether those images might have helped determine damage to Columbia.
"I'm not ever engaging in shoulda, coulda, woulda's" O'Keefe said. "I want to see all the facts in before I make a judgment about somebody else's judgment.
O'Keefe indicated NASA was pursuing similar agreements with the Air Force to take pictures of future shuttle missions with ground-based telescopes.
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