Standard procedure called for the tank photos to be transmitted to the ground at the end of the first day’s operations. However, the Columbia crew had a busy day ahead of them configuring the experiments aboard Spacehab. The photos of the tank were never downlinked. If engineers on the ground had seen the photos, they would have immediately noticed that a large piece of foam—about the size of a carry-on suitcase—was missing from the area at the base of the left side of the strut connecting the orbiter’s nose to the tank.
