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NASA officials said Thursday that the exterior of the flight data recorder recovered Wednesday near Hemphill, about 160 miles from Houston, is in remarkably good condition–raising hopes that its contents will provide clues to the cause of the space shuttle Columbia’s fiery breakup on Feb. 1.
NASA engineers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston spent the day poring over the black metal box–which looks much like a VCR with wires dangling from the back–and began devising a protocol for extracting vital information on the aerodynamic pressure, temperature and vibrations aboard the orbiter during its final minutes.
