Today’s report into the decisions that led to Nasa’s Columbia shuttle disaster will not pull any punches, officials warned.

US investigators probing the events that brought down space shuttle Columbia and killed seven astronauts are close to completing a rough draft of their final report.

The space shuttle Columbia’s skin was almost certainly pierced, allowing superheated air inside the left wing and possibly the wheel compartment during Columbia’s fiery descent through Earth’s atmosphere, investigators have said.

CREWS combed suburban gardens and remote Texas woodlands for the remains of space shuttle Columbia yesterday as experts focused on a heat surge on the left side of the doomed spacecraft in the early investigation of why it disintegrated.