Data From Columbia Disk Drives Survived
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Data From Columbia Disk Drives Survived
Data have been recovered from the disk drives of the shuttle Columbia, which broke apart high over Texas in 2003.
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(May 9, 2008)--Jon Edwards, who often manages what appears impossible, recovering precious data from computers wrecked by floods and fires, has found information on a melted disk drive that fell from the sky when space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas in 2003.

During Columbia's last mission, the drive had been used to store data from a scientific experiment on the properties of liquid xenon.

Most of the information was radioed to Earth during Columbia's voyage, but Edwards was able to recover the rest, allowing researchers to publish the experiment in the April issue of the science journal Physical Review E.

That led Kroll Ontrack to share details of its salvage effort.

Columbia broke apart during re-entry in February 2003, killing its seven astronauts.

The shuttle had been damaged at launch by foam insulation that fell off an external fuel tank.

Like other Columbia debris, the mangled disk drive turned up in East Texas.

Six months after the disaster, a NASA contractor sent the drive to Kroll Ontrack, which specializes in data recovery.

NASA write-up of the experiment whose data was recovered:

Click Here For The Write-Up
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