[snopercod]

Nice work. As a former KSC Tank & Booster Test Conductor [TBC] I have two "off the cuff" comments.

1. It probably was a LWT. The SLWTs are needed to reduce weight so the Shuttle can reach the high-inclination Russian orbit. There would have been no reason to "waste" a SLWT on this flight.

2. The assignment of which boosters, ETs, payloads, etc. go on which flight are made literally years in advance. The STS-107 mission got jacked around (e.g. delayed) due to the Russian failure to produce their ISS hardware on time. The postponement of STS-107 probably explains the "old" number tank which seems out of sequence.

Once again, nice work and thanks for taking time to post it.

[Sonar5]

It was definately a LWT on STS-107. This was confirmed to me by email from Michoud.

You are absolutely correct about loads being determined years in advance.

The Sequence actually fluctuates from time to time because of delays, etc...

Thanks for reading it. :-)

regards,
Joe

[GovernmentShrinker]

Do you think there may be a link between long storage time of the tank and propensity of the foam to break off at launch?