Atlantis’s STS-27 mission, where hundreds of the orbiter’s tiles were heavily damaged during launch, and missing tile created a hole in the heatshield that nearly burned through on reentry. Atlantis held the distinction of being the most heavily damaged spaceship ever to survive reentry.2 And on STS-112, just four months before Columbia’s launch, a smaller piece of foam fell off the external tank and dented the metal ring attaching the left solid rocket booster (SRB) to the tank.
