NASA has drawn upon NIST's expertise in cold temperature research for data on the properties of liquid and solid nitrogen and for measurements of thermal conductivity in foam insulation.
According to NASA, one theory for the disaster is that pieces of foam insulation broke off from the shuttle's external tank shortly after liftoff and struck the leading edge of the Columbia's left wing. This may have caused a failure in the insulation on the wing, which proved disastrous upon re-entry. According to the theory, liquid and solid nitrogen between the foam and the tank wall may have contributed to the breaking away of the foam from the fuel tank.
NIST was able to supply immediately the properties of liquid nitrogen from its cryogenic database, and it provided NASA with properties data on solid nitrogen from 20 Kelvin up to its melting temperature of 63 Kelvin after a search of relevant cryogenics research papers. NIST also helped NASA repair and calibrate an instrument for measuring the thermal conductivity of the foam at extremely cold temperatures, a critical part of the accident investigation tests. The unique instrument--a very low temperature guarded hot plate--was developed at NIST and later transferred to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.