"During the ... ascent, two ground-based long-range camera sites provided data that was usable for evaluating the foam strike against the vehicle," the Columbia Accident Investigation Board said in initial findings announced Tuesday.

"A third camera that would have provided a better view was unusable," the CAIB said, in its fourth such recommendation since NASA brought in an outside team to investigate the February 1 tragedy in which the shuttle exploded as it reentered the earth's atmosphere. All seven astronauts aboard died.

"The current long-range camera assets on the Kennedy Space Center and Eastern Range are inadequate to provide best possible engineering data during Space Shuttle ascents."

The CAIB said lack of high-resolution, high-speed cameras providing both temporal and spatial imagery data had hampered the chances of evaluating the impact of debris hitting the Columbia on takeoff.

An exposed area on the shuttle as a result of insulating foam breaking off and hitting it on takeoff probably led to the craft's disintegration, the committee has said.

Last week, CAIB said NASA should "develop a comprehensive autonomous inspection and repair capability to cover the widest practicable range of damage scenarios" available to shuttles that are not heading to the ISS.

The board said that before flights to the orbiting International Space Station start again, that NASA should "develop a practicable capability to inspect and effect emergency repairs to the widest possible range of damage."

NASA engineers spotted the tumbling foam in films taken of the liftoff, but dismissed it as inconsequential.

SPACE.WIRE