rschmitt23 wrote:

Are they going to re-evaluate / retest and update it with new information?

The Orange County Register a few weeks ago ran an article about the guy who
developed Crater in the 1970s. He's long retired, lives somewhere in Orange
County and apparently has been asked by Boeing to provide support if and
when NASA decides to upgrade Crater to handle large hunks of foam FOD
impacting the orbiter.

If I'm recalling the relevant part of the CAIB report correctly, CRATER turns
out to be essentially one big equation that is supposed to model the effects of
strikes on the TIPS. My take is that it's not a generalized simulation program
that can be easily updated, modified, or adapted to other materials such as
RCC.

I'm somewhat suprised that there isn't an explicit recommendation to adopt
and qualify a modern FEA tool for such analyses.

JGM