Posted on 09/19/2006 8:53:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA mission controllers are tracking a mystery object hovering between the space shuttle Atlantis and Earth, and traveling at roughly the same speed as the orbiter, agency officials said Tuesday.
“Right now they’re just tying to figure out exactly what it is, how far away it is,” NASA spokesperson Kimberly Harle told SPACE.com. “It’s pretty much assessing the whole situation.”
arle said that at 2:45 a.m. EDT (0645 GMT), just after Atlantis completed a check of its reaction control thrusters, the instrumentation and communications officer at NASA’s shuttle Mission Control room at Johnson Space Center noted an object between the orbiter and Earth, and traveling at about the same speed of the spacecraft.
Flight controllers are now using video cameras mounted along Atlantis’ robotic arm and payload bay to survey visible areas of the orbiter, including its wing leading edges and other vital heat shield areas, Harle said.
“Everything is still under assessment,” Harle said.
For now, Atlantis’ STS-115 shuttle crew will not stow their Ku-band antenna – the primary video and data link to Earth – to allow flight controllers to continue to study the object.
NASA is broadcasting Atlantis’ STS-115 mission to the ISS live via NASA TV. You are invited to follow the shuttle's progress using SPACE.com's NASA TV feed, which is available by clicking here or using the button at the left.
That is not good news....
They found us
Are you getting audio from that feed? I'm not but I'm not sure if it's on my end or theirs.
Did someone finally get that moon ladder up and working?
Yes getting audio.
My eyes. My eyes!!!!
Sorta, yeah. But as CH notes above, it could also just be vibrations from the thrusters and hydraulic actuators that were active at the time.
Once the crew is up they can use the Rendezvous Radar to get a distance fix, and from that they can use pixels and other such to get an estimate of the thing's size.
Interesting.
Jimmy Hoffa...
_______________
Ok - that made me laugh right out loud...getting the visual and all!
I only caught the tail end of the press conference but did they say that there was an impact recorded during ascent at 14 seconds? If so, is this the same area in which the 'event' last night was recorded?
Didn't catch the whole thiing msyself.
Well, I noticed that the cameras have been all over the cargo bay today. If it is indeed a fair-sized object I would think that they would have immediately found what was missing with the inspections done today. Given that it's tracking the shuttle in trajectory it seems like it must have come from some place on the orbiter that is not visible to the cameras right now? If it's relatively large, then it must be a serious compromise of the TPS, whatever it is? Perhaps it could be a discharge from the vehicle - like ice - but they should know if they were discharging at that time, right?
Down off Manchester? I recently moved from there. I really miss it.
John
I dunno.
Just praying right now.
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