Columbia Reentry Observations

Brian Webb, KD6NRP Ventura County, California E-mail: kd6nrp@earthlink.net Web Site: http://home.earthlink.net/~kd6nrp

2003 February 12 (Wednesday) 20:00 PST ----------------------------------------------------------------------

In response to my request for observations of the February 1, 2003 Columbia reentry, I have received numerous reports. The following is a compilation of all of the usable accounts received.

These reports have been edited for brevity and clarity. Many observers may sound upbeat about the disaster, but this is the result of my taking their comments out of context. Also, the location listed under an observer's name is that from which they viewed the reentry and may or may not be where they reside. Finally, text within [ ] brackets was inserted by me.

Although all of the observations are interesting, several are especially so because the observer reported seeing or capturing images or video of puffs coming off of the Shuttle, a momentary brightening of the vehicle, etc. The observers who mentioned such phenomena were:

Doug Allison Mike B. Rick Baldidge B. Bennett Mark Bixby David Bill and Nance Gault Doug Jones Ian Kluft Jay Lawson Dick Matthews Charles McPartland Carmelita and Charles Morris Joe Nickerson Randy Perretta Mike Plaisted John Sanford Aldo Spandoni Lloyd Vadnais

"...Viewing location was hot springs road on the east side of highway 395 and north of the airport. I chose a spot approximately 1/2 way between the airport cutoff and what I take to be a fishing camp on Hot Springs road. There was 1 porch light approx 1/4 mile away and a very large wide open section of the sky was visible. Conditions overhead were very clear with the stars shining brightly. There was a slight haze on the south & western horizons, which may have been thin high clouds. I was lying on my back, feet facing northwest and scanning the whole sky, binoculars at the ready.

I first noticed the Shuttle at ~30 deg (rough estimate) above the horizon as a faint fuzzy reddish spot, almost stationary. Glancing at my watch it was 05:53. At first it looked like the planet Mars, appearing a rusty reddish/yellowish/brownish and almost stationary. It grew larger & brighter as it moved across the sky, NW to SE.

Within 10 seconds of spotting it began losing the rusty red color and became whiter and brighter with a faint shade of pink. Then the color transitioned to much brighter white with stronger pink color and it began to leave a contrail. The pink tones became much stronger, transitioning to bright red, just like a road flare, with some white light mixed in. At this point it was almost directly overhead and leaving a strong contrail, twice as wide as a standard commercial jet aircraft. Through out the portion of the arc from +/- 30 deg (approximate) of apex, it seemed to flicker slightly. Using 10X binoculars at the point most directly overhead, 2 objects were clearly visible. One, very bright (Shuttle) object and another smaller, but very distinct trailing slightly behind and glowing like an ember. When I pulled the binoculars down the 2nd object was not visible with the naked eye. I watched it for 2 to 3 minutes before disappeared below the southeast horizon.

The event so visually intense that I expected to hear sound, but there was none. I was left in awe. I did not have a camera..."

From Los Angeles (Westchester, on the north edge of LA Airport). Just from the front porch, between the street trees, at 5:54:40, appeared at due north, just over the rooftops, caught it.

I'd almost given up, as 5:53 was the planned time, and I could see a bit of high fuzzy clouds.

Bare eyed, I thought I may have seen some sparks fly off, either debris, or plasma.

Only a few stars were visible overhead, but it was brighter than the visible stars."

"I have seen, photographed and video taped four Shuttle reentries over California, starting with STS-63. A photo of the reentry of STS-73 is posted at:

and click on "Astronomy Stuff" album, and then the second picture. The Yahoo page was down a few days ago but is working again.)

Believe me, NONE of them show even the slightest indication of brightenings in the trail or small pieces coming off.

Yesterday was a bad day for me (and all of us.) I video taped the reentry for Mt. Hamilton, CA and took two photos. Naked-eye, we didn't notice anything too unusual, but I was spending most of my time looking through the video camera viewfinder. We thought we had just seen another spectacular NORMAL reentry. Only an hour later when I got home did I learn of the tragedy that occurred minutes after we saw the Shuttle go by.

When I looked at my video, there were very faint but definite pieces coming off, with the first piece seen on the video at 5:53:45am PST +/- 1 second. A had made a time-hack as I always do to obtain timings, and this hack was synchronized to WWV. As far as I know at this time, I was the furthest west observer on the reentry track to get a video.

NASA has been given a copy of the tape. They may want the master of course to analyze further. I also took two still photos, one through a 16mm lens that shows the entire visible trace of the Shuttle and BOTH photos show definite brightenings in the trail that corresponde to brightenings the video shows. Again, I have NEVER seen this activity before STS-107. The photos will be scanned today and posted, after I get a copy to NASA."

"...It's been a very busy 36 hours trying to get data reduced and info to NASA on the video and pictures I took.

The two still photos I took from Mt. Hamilton (right next to the 40" dome at Lick Observatory -- coords N37° 20.498' W121° 38.579' Alt 4230 feet WGS84 datum) have been scanned (rather poorly by myself, I might add!) and annotated. I've posted them at:

I won't speculate at this point -- we've had quite enough of that already. Let's just say the photos, videos and eyewitness accounts definitely show that something was amiss while COLUMBIA was over California. With this being my 4th observed reentry, I have a lot of experience looking over photos and videos that I've taken and nothing unusual showed on the previous three.

Funny thing was, several of us who saw STS-107 Saturday morning didn't see anything we would call really "unusual" using the naked-eye. The only comments were that the "color" seemed a bit off, perhaps more "orange", but that could be explained by a variety of causes. Only later when we looked at the video and developed the slides did we see something funny was going on. This leads me to believe that the average eyewitness in California may not have seen something going on when in fact it was. Hooray for video cameras..."

"My husband and I watched the reentry from Dewey, Arizona (in the Prescott area) through binoculars. He had set up a video camera but unfortunately in the excitement of the moment he failed to change the mode from standby to record so we have no pictures of what we saw. We were absolutely thrilled when the Shuttle appeared to the northwest. We have watched both the Shuttle and the Space Station passing overhead at night but this was our first reentry so we really didn't know what to expect beyond the "manmade meteor". When the shuttle was approximately due north of us we saw what I described to my husband as "sparks" coming off of the Shuttle before it went out of our view. We had a short conversation as to whether this was a normal event or not because we hadn't known exactly what to expect..."

From about 5:53 a.m. until about 5:55 a.m. the Shuttle was easily visible from the Graham Street/Wintersburg Channel bridge. Using 7x35 binoculars, I observed quite close to the horizon an orange point of light with a faint, trailing orange contrail.

There were a few periodic "bursts" in the contrail where it got somewhat brighter and then dimmed back down to the average brightness. I have never witnessed a Shuttle reentry before, so I have no idea if those brightness bursts were normal. I could not perceive anything falling off of the Shuttle and forming a separate contrail.

According to the post-disaster news conference, the first sensor failures in the left wing of the Shuttle occurred at 5:53 a.m. Did this have anything to do with the bursts I saw? I have no idea...

"I live in Garden Valley, CA. which is east of Sacramento. I live in the Sierra Mountain foothills, so we rarely get the fog that is so common in winter west of here. Here is what I saw and heard.

I had never seen a reentry before so I didn't know what to expect. It was cloudy here but the clouds were thin so I could see a lot of stars through the clouds. I didn't expect the Shuttle to be all that bright because of the clouds. Its path took it almost directly over head.

The closest description I can think of is that it looked almost like an orange arc welder's torch. It was very bright, way brighter and larger than I had expected. It left a huge contrail, something else I didn't expect. I watched it until it went out of site on the low horizon. I looked through binoculars for a short time, but decided I got a better overall impact with the naked eye. Unfortunately, I took no pictures.

I was so excited that it had been so wonderful, that I ran up my long driveway and turned on the NASA channel to watch it land. At that point they had just lost communications and were waiting for communications to be restored. Sometime during this wait, my wife and I heard a distant boom..."

...A red dot moving west to east low in the northern sky. Could see the "plasma trail" behind the dot just barely visible. The line was very straight and steady.

"....seven minutes before breakup. This clip is poor but all that I have. I held the camera up as I observed Columbia with the naked eye. If you've ever seen a fireball during a meteor shower you have some idea what she looked like. What an incredibly beautiful sight....such a sad ending to a perfect journey..."

"...I was able to see the Shuttle come back to Earth, and then raced back to my home 2 minutes away - only to see the events unfold...I saw the Shuttle reenter at about 5:53ish. It looked like a orange comet leaving a long trail. I went to a park on a hill by my home that has a good view. I used Bushnell 10x50 binoculars and was thrilled with what I saw. I got home and waited (and waited) for the landing. You know the rest..."

"Had a brief 3 or 4 second visual through a hole in the clouds. Very spectacular display. Bright white with a brilliant trail. Never having seen a reentry before I'm not sure if anything was unusual but cannot report seeing anything I could describe as debris or breaking up..."

"I must tell you now that one third of the way in its movement on the horizon the vapor or contrail had a white smudge or oval shape inconsistent with the rest of the trail both behind and [a]head. The Shuttle appeared to be orange but isn't that normal?"

"...to add to my last e-mail--I don't know if this would be useful, but that smudge or oval cloud in the contrail of Shuttle stood out because it was (blue white) and was in contrast to the black sky and the rest of trail which was muted by comparison."

"I was able to the Space Shuttle return this morning at 5:54 a.m. It was low to the northern horizon just above the mountains. A large fireball with a tail around twice a long as the fireball was round. It also left a large distinct contrail that was visible for several minutes. Very cool.

..The sky was less than perfect for observation with an almost complete covering of haze, with the haze present I left my camera inside the house. I was impressed with the size of the fireball, not observing a reentry before I have nothing to compare it with. The fireball had a tail about twice as long as the diameter of the ball. I didn't see anything falling from the vehicle.

"I was on Angeles Crest Hwy. at the Silver Moccasin Trail head. I saw Columbia through cirrus, it disappeared through thicker clouds, reappeared, it didn't quite clear Vetter Mountain, and then continued on through cirrus before disappearing. I saw nothing indicating a problem through binoculars or my 200mm zoom lens. I also listened for the sonic boom, until 06:21 PST and did not hear it. They have been heard during this stage of earlier reentries but atmospheric conditions or distance apparently precluded hearing it...I took 2 or 3 still images but don't expect them to show anything..."

We went out to look for the Shuttle about 5:40 a.m. PST...About 5:53 a.m. PST we witnessed the Shuttle passing overhead the Las Vegas, Nevada area. It entered our view about NW and exited about SE. If NE is 0 degrees and SE is 180 degrees, at about 105 degrees I noticed the smooth trail break and expand, back to smooth and do it again at about 120 degrees. The trail appeared smooth again until it left out view. I am sorry we do not have any pictures..."

"[Observing Location] Just south of Lake Isabella, California approximately 3,000 feet elevation.

We saw something shaped like a ball going through the air parallel to the ground with a vapor following. It traveled from Shirley Peak towards Owens Valley. We did not see anything coming off of the Columbia while we watched it..."

"...I observed from Mojave, CA, about 35.05N 118.16W, with 10x50 binoculars. There was a bit of haze that gave stars and planets a slight "coma", but I clearly saw the orange dot moving east, leaving an ion trail behind it. At about the time of closest approach, it got brighter for a moment (seen mostly as a brightening of the haze) and a smaller dot separated and drifted aft, dimming as it went. This dimmed out completely in about ten to twenty seconds. Perhaps 30 s later I saw another brightening, but no other object- the trail did grow thicker for a moment. The Shuttle appeared dimmer as it moved toward the dawn glare, and I lost sight of it well before the horizon. When I tried to look back at the trail, it had already faded..."

Was facing north when out of the corner of my eye this very bright light appeared over the mountains just to the west of my place. It was impressive but it was leaving a contrail. At 200,000+ feet I didn't expect a contrail especially since the Shuttle was in glider mode. About the time it reach my zenith it seem to change color from reddish tint to a blue tint. There were several color changes after that. The Sun not yet up seem to be highlighting the 'contrail.' The contrail path went from horizon to horizon and was visible for several minutes.

[Observing Location] Approximately the 2000' elevation (above the fog) on SR130 on Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose.

Though we thought we were far enough up the mountain, a fog bank formed suddenly around our group 3 minutes before the Shuttle's arrival. We scrambled to toss everything in our vehicles and drive further up the mountain. I was talking on the ham radio with a friend who was watching from Skyline Blvd at the crest of the Santa Cruz Mountains, west of SJ.

He told me that Columbia was at the northwest, then the north, and then he lost it behind trees. At that moment, I broke out of the fog and saw Columbia.

It wasn't what I expected. I had seen two pre-dawn reentries before. They had looked like a highway flare with a thin glowing meteor-streak behind it. But it had a smoky trail this time, which seemed to partly obscure the brightness of the orbiter in my view as it departed to the east. Others whom I met at the vantage point (who also had to flee from the fog) are members of the Peninsula Astronomical Society, and had seen several reentries before too. We all thought this was different. But it didn't occur to us that there was anything wrong until we heard on the news that Columbia was overdue at KSC.

We later correlated the time of the smoky trail (5:54 a.m. Pacific) with about a minute after NASA said Columbia started losing signals from sensors in the left wing (7:53 a.m. Central).

Some members of the Peninsula Astronomical Society got photos and video. I wasn't able to because of the scramble to get back above the fog during the Shuttle pass..."

"I was video taping the event as it happened and I believe my tape may show some problems while it flew over Nevada. No news agencies are open in Reno yet (it's still a small town in a lot of ways).

I am trying to find ways to contact NASA or local news to see if my video will help. My guess is that the Shuttle may have lost heat tiles over Nevada on its way to falling apart in Texas. The main event I saw took place about 5 degrees west of Venus at 5:54:25 (time based on the NASA website you sent yesterday)."

"I am going to try to get the video digitized this morning or at least do screen captures of the "explosions". I will get those to you if I am sucessful. I am still trying to contact the local news people to look at the tape and send it to the networks.

I call them "explosions" because as the Shuttle entered over Sparks / Reno there was an obvious glow and ionization trail. There was one small puff in the trail before the Shuttle passed the meridian (near Spica ). As I zoomed the camera in when it approached Venus, there was a large puff and a second object (debris) passed with and behind the Shuttle as it went passed Venus. Shortly after that, I lost the view into low clouds at the eastern horizon..."

"I saw the Shuttle reentry from San Francisco. I was at the corner of Eddy Street and Franklin Street, using no optical aids, and blocking the light of a street light with a tree. I was able to see the Shuttle and its contrail for about 10 seconds, as it passed between buildings. The coma around the Shuttle was extremely bright (-10, or so) and reddish in color. I could see nothing but a single contrail... no knots, no secondary trails... but, admittedly, the conditions were pretty bad. When I could no longer see the Shuttle, I checked the time. I had 5:53:50."

I live in Woodland--just outside of Sacramento. It was foggy so I drove to Colfax on hwy 80 in the Sierras. Thru the high, light clouds I clearly saw the reentry from the bay area to the obstruction of the Sierras. Was fantastic--I did note that near the obstruction of the Sierras there was a distinct fluctuation in the fireball--it may have been a normal fluctuation, but it sure made me think when I found out that only 6 minutes later, it was lost..."

"Early this morning I got to see the Space Shuttle reenter the atmosphere. An orange ball of light streaking from the northwest toward the northeast very low on the horizon. Brian Webb (listmaster for Launch Alert) and I were on a ridge line north of Thousand Oaks a few minutes before 6:00 a.m. to see if we could catch the event. For the most part the sky was clear with the exception of some haze near the horizon in all directions. We were monitoring the audio of NASA Video on 224.9375 MHz FM the entire time. We were barely able to pick up the Shuttle as it passed low over the horizon. It took less than 2 minutes to cross our field of view."

Observing location: (Fallon, Nevada 39.4740N, 118.7760W) : 10 miles NW of Naval Air Station Fallon.

Note: There is very little light pollution here and viewing of the night sky is excellent for this type of event!

...The SST-107 arrived about 2-minutes ahead of schedule and was coming from the West. I would guess that the magnitude was about -1.5.

The Shuttle was glowing a reddish orange color from the radiant heating. As it came higher in the sky, a plasma or ionic trail was left for at least 200 miles behind the Shuttle and the trail was a greenish color.

At maximum altitude from our vantage point, the Shuttle was about 75 degrees in height to the south of us. The reddish orange was then beginning to fade a bit, but the greenish trail seemed to brighten a bit.

When the Shuttle passed to the southeast of us, it went behind a cloud for about 15 seconds, and was not visible to us.

When the Shuttle emerged from behind the cloud, the reddish orange glow was very dim. The greenish trail was now evident on both sides of the cloud.

It is important to know that we were looking at the left side of the Shuttle during all of this time. Several seconds after emerging from behind the cloud, the reddish glow was not visible. We could still track the Shuttle by its greenish trail.

About a second later, a bright white flash of light appeared to come from the Shuttle. I would guess this light to be about a magnitude -1.5! The greenish trail continued for another 15 seconds or so, until it disappeared as the Shuttle went behind another cloud. The direction was east and the elevation was about 20 degrees above the horizon.

As my wife and I walked back to the house, we talked about the bright flash of light. At that time we thought that it could have been reflection from the Sun.

We watched the NASA channel for about five minutes as we waited for the landing. I then went outside to see if the greenish trail was still visible but it was faded out by that time.

Observed the Shuttle moving against the sky low on the horizon for 5-10 secs. It was very dim and haze against the San Bernadino Mountains nearly obscurred it.

Passing over Las Vegas, Nevada at 5:56, leaving a nice contrail behind as it moved to the east."

"...I just watched the Shuttle make its fly-by. It was a good deal above the horizon and I watched it for about 20 seconds, they were moving faster than anything I had ever seen and they were leaving a long trail that didn't last long..."

We were at Whittier Peak and had a pretty good view. Charles did get video of some puffs coming off the back of the Shuttle..." [Carmelita]

"The video, which was shot initially at 1/4 sec exposure and hence is jumpy, shows what is clearly two distinct "puffs" in the trail of the Shuttle. These move away from the Shuttle. The time is about right for the loss of signal with the first sensors ~ 5:53 pm PST. To steady the image, I reduced the shutter speed and thus, lost the trail." [Charles]

"We saw the Shuttle reentry from Mount Hamilton, Ca. It arrived right on time and the view was spectacular. Like a glowing ball flying straight from west to east, leaving a snow white track."

The orbiter crossed the sky right on schedule (5:52 a.m. PST) from about WNW to E at about 40-50 degrees above the horizon. It appeared as a solid yellow dot, larger than a shooting star or aircraft. It was moving in a straight line faster than an aircraft would appear, and faster than other orbiting objects we often observe (and much larger as well), but slower than a shooting star.

I made these observations with the naked eye. Visiblity was slightly hampered by thin and low local fog. Overhead stars were visible, but the horizon was obscured. This gave the moving object a round fuzzy appearance, and possibly obscured any details out of the ordinary.

...There may have been a thin overcast. Stars high looked clear, but I could not see any stars below the Big Dipper because of street lights and clouds.

....I picked up the Shuttle as a pale orange streakmoving from left to right. I estimate I saw it first almost due north. I then followed it with binoculars, seeing a brighter orange spot which left a trail. This trail had two irregularities. Specically, the irregularities were brighter orange patches within the paler trail. These patches were persistent and stayed fixed in space. That is, they did not move with the Shuttle. I did not discern any separate pieces. I followed the Shuttle until blocked by my roof. The last I saw, it was moving more to the east and seemed brighter, despite moving towards the dawn sky

....At the time, I recall being surprised by the bright patches. My initial thought was that a heat shield was ablating, but immediately recalled that the Shuttle has reusable tiles, not old-style ablative coatings. Thus I was surprised by what I saw. Never having seen a reentry before, I worried, but assumed that was normal. I did not learn of the crash for at least two hours after. Finally, the brightning of the orbiter as it went east I took to be associated with looking at it from "above", or down the trail, rather than perpendicular. I still believe that to be the case.

"I observed and photographed the Shuttle reentry from my house in Henderson NV (36.03 N 115.03 W). The Shuttle passed overhead at about 5:54-5:55 a.m. from northwest to southeast. Everything looked normal to me. I had never observed a Shuttle reentry before. It took about 30-40 seconds to pass by. I took an eight-second exposure (photo attached) at 5:55 a.m. with my digital camera..."

Our location was at our home at the 2967' level on a mountaintop roughly 20 miles due east of Mt. Hamilton east of San Jose and about 25 miles due west of the town of Patterson in the Central Valley. Observing conditions were excellent, the sky clear and starry with visibility in excess of 200 miles. The Sierras were plainly visible to the east and southeast in the morning twilight as were the peaks of the coast range to the north, west and south. There were some clouds visible to the north, well below the Shuttle path due to an approaching front.

The Shuttle came out of the NW like a rocket as they say, leaving a bright, bright uniform trail initially. Its course was steady. As it passed due north of us at about 50 degrees of elevation, the trail began to fluctuate in intensity. This fluctuation was noticeable to the point where my wife commented on it. The entire trail had left a considerable afterglow and in the afterglow past the point where the fluctuation began, I noticed a few bright spots that appeared to be glowing brighter than others.

As we watched the Shuttle disappear over the Sierras to the SE, I offered the explanation that perhaps the fluctuations were due to varying air density in the upper atmosphere. Apparently and unfortunately, I was wrong...

"I set up a chair in the north part of yard and looked directly to the northwest at an estimated 30 degrees.

The Shuttle appeared right on schedule and right where I was looking. When it was close to due north I noticed that there was a bright light leading and slightly lower and a small distance behind was a second light. My impression was that the nose cone was glowing and the second light must have been off the wing on the right side. (I now think it must have been the left wing).

The leading light seemed to be about as bright as Venus and the second light about half that brightness. The distance between the two lights was a little less than a diameter of the smaller light. The two lights stayed about the same distance apart. I didn't think anything was wrong but it was confusing to me. When it was just past due north, I called to my wife who came right out. I turned away from viewing for a second or two. When I turned back it was difficult to see for another moment as we were looking through tree branches but when in the open again, it was only one light. My assumption was that the second light was the wing and the two lights were now lining up so only showed as one. The whole time there was only one 'meteor' trail and I didn't see any parts separate and fall away.

"...I live in San Diego @ N 32.555 x W 117.301 , I used 8x56 binoculars to view the reentry for about 3 seconds between two houses very low on the horizon. It was due north at about 05:55. I saw a single solid orange/red fireball followed by a whitish contrail. I took no images..."

"...At about 5:40 I went up to the top of the hill, in the park, behind my house, in Costa Mesa, California.

The Columbia flew from the northwest to the north-east shortly after 5:53 a.m. I watched it with the unaided eye for about 45 seconds. It was moving VERY FAST. It looked like a bright white dot in an faint orange/white cloud. It was truly beautiful, like a man-made star hurtling through the heavens..."

"[Observing Location] Central Sierra mountains - 5,500 feet - we are about 50 mile NE of Fresno - Owen's Valley is to the SE of us and we occasionally feel their earthquakes here.

I went out with my two older sons just a little after 5:50 in the morning to watch the Shuttle fly past. From our view both its approach from the NW and departure to the NE were partially blocked by pine trees. It was not an ideal viewing location. We were watching it unaided - no binoculars. I have never seen a Shuttle reentry before so I can't compare what I saw with previous experiences. It was about 35 degrees above the horizon. It was a bright fireball-like shape trailing a plume behind it. It moved amazingly fast. It was what I had expected to see based upon what I had read on what it would look like. I talked to my two sons and neither they nor I noticed any changes in brightness or anything falling away from the Shuttle. We were just a Dad and his kids excited to see something so cool and I don't think we would have noticed something subtle dropping away from Shuttle..."

"...I got up and videoed the Shuttle going over California. It was low in the north from here but significant tape was shot. My tape made with a Sony Digital Hi8 and Nightshot (IR blocking filter out) shows two what I would call "separation events". There is a flash and then some material joins the trail behind the fireball, and then a second or so later, another smaller flash and then something fairly large comes off the ship, follows along for a moment and then slowly falls behind as it fades. This just at 0553 when they got the interrupted transmission from the ship...."

"Right outside my home here in Springville. Cords: W118 48 18.8 and N 36 13 28.6 elev 2230 ASL

"My wife and I did successfully see Columbia from south Orange County, CA this morning.

Our coordinates were approximately: lat N33.66; lon W-117.82 deg, near the 5 and 405 fwy intersection in Laguna Hills. According to J-Pass, we were expecting a visual in the NW at 0552 hrs PST, but due to slight cloud cover, we made contact at approximately 0553. It was never higher than approximately 5 degrees above the horizon.

We observed the Shuttle in the pre-dawn as a faint yellowish orange glow on a smooth, predicted track. Initial contact was beneath Ursa Major in the north as it made its way east. A contrail could be faintly seen. For this event, we had been monitoring NASA audio with my hand-held ham [radio] on freq 448.500; WA6VLD, Mt. Wilson. The NASA PR person was making regular announcements as to its location, altitude, etc. We saw nothing irregular from our experience during the entire 2-3 minute scan across the sky."

"...I had occasion to observe the reentry of STS-107 on the morning of February 1, 2003 from a location in southern California. I observed two anomalous events during this observation, with reasonably accurate measurements of time and position...

These observations were made from the north facing balcony of my home. I live in the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, on the southern edge of the Los Angeles basin in California. My home is located on a north facing hillside with an unobstructed view of the entire Los Angeles basin. Elevation at this location is approximately 1000 feet above sea level. The position of my home is 33 degrees 45 minutes 2 seconds north latitude, 118 degrees 19 minutes 52 seconds east longitude. This location estimate is based on my review of US Geological Survey map N3345 - 11815/7.5, Torrance, California....

Visibility over the Los Angeles basin was generally excellent on the morning of February 1, 2003. The morning featured scattered high thin clouds, but the stars were clearly visible through these clouds. To the north, I could easily see the antenna towers and lights on top of Mt. Wilson, located approximately 37 miles north east of my location. This is a good general indication of visibility to the north across the Los Angeles basin, especially near the horizon. The sky was not completely dark, of course, given the cumulative light of Los Angeles. Twilight was just becoming visible on the eastern horizon...

All quoted times are Pacific Standard Time. Luckily, I had just set the time on my digital watch just prior to observing Columbia. I used a local telephone-based time service at 310-853-1212. I have no way of estimating the accuracy of this time service. I had a clear view of Polaris, and used it as a basis for all azimuth estimates. I have done my best to estimate the uncertainty of all quoted time and position observations. I conducted these observations using Bushnell Rangemaster wide angle binoculars, 7 x 35mm, with an 11 degree field-of-view.

I began my observation at approximately 5:45 a.m. Columbia first came into naked eye view at approximately 5:53:20 - 5:53:40, moving west to east, approximately 10 degrees above the horizon, perhaps a few degrees west of due north. Columbia appeared as a bright point of light, yellowish white in color, with a visible but relatively dim contrail appearing orange gray in color. I watched it for a few seconds naked-eye, then continued my observations using my binoculars. Columbia was beautiful! Almost immediately after beginning the binocular observation, with Columbia approximately 6 to 10 degrees east of due north, I witnessed a single piece of debris separate from the bright point of light which was Columbia. This debris was visible as a single point of light which moved back from Columbia and slightly below the contrail. Its brightness appeared to be significant as compared to Columbia itself, perhaps 10 to 20 % as bright. The debris appeared to maintain a fairly steady level of brightness and then winked out quickly. The duration of this event was approximately one second. I estimate that this event occurred at approximately 5:53:45 - 5:54:00 (see figure 1).

Approximately 3 to 6 seconds later, I witnessed a second similar event, another single point of light separating from Columbia. This was much dimmer than the first with a shorter duration before it became invisible, perhaps 0.5 seconds (see figure 2). I estimate that this event occurred at approximately 5:54:03 - 5:54:06.

Subsequently, no additional such events were visible. Columbia remained visible as a single point of light during the remainder of my observations, moving in a straight trajectory from my point of view. It remained visible until it disappeared over the mountain ranges east of the Los Angeles basin. This occurred at approximately 5:57:00 - 5:57:30. The point on the horizon at which I lost sight of Columbia was approximately 70 degrees east of due north. It occurred to me that Columbia was probably over Nevada or Arizona at this point....

I have extensive experience as an aerospace illustrator, visualizing aerospace concepts and phenomena... using various computer graphic tools. I have recreated the events I witnessed and described above to the best of my ability, using Adobe Photoshop. I submit these as figures 1 and 2. On these illustrations, I have indicated the relative brightness of Columbia and the debris events to the best of my recollection, as observed through the binoculars described above. Also, I have positioned the debris just at the angular distance behind Columbia where the debris began to fade to invisibility. Note these are strictly illustrations based on my best recollection of observed events..."

What looked to be a normal, descending groundtrack over the southern Sierras; passage was a bit muted (in comparison to STS-51D mission over Houston, TX in 1985), due to low, thin cloud cover. Couldn't see entire pass, due to neighbor's house blocking view....

"...I was able to see the Shuttle from my view spot in Placentia, Calif. (near Anaheim) it was faint and low on the horizon about 10-15 degrees. Of course not much detail on it because of all the pollutants I suppose. But I did see the long tail..."

"...I watched from my home in Colfax, which is about 45 miles northeast of Sacramento. This was my first reentry observation. It was a very cool sight to see, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing another!..."

"I sent you an observation report about an hour after seeing the Shuttle's reentry...I reread my report later, and decided that I should add a couple of details, and correct an error. So here's the updated version...I took a photo, but it's still in the camera. If you'd like, and if it turns out, I can email you a copy when I get it developed."

The morning was dark with broken low clouds, but stars were intermittently visible, and we were hopeful. We had been out for about ten minutes, and were about to give it up when the clouds opened and I saw a bright reddish white spot (about the size of a airliner at 15K feet, not just a dot like a star) appear in the east about 30 degrees up from the horizon. It streaked across the sky from west to east, about 10 degrees off vertical to the north, leaving a beautiful laser green trail that persisted for half a minute after the Shuttle itself was out of site. It was the first either of us had seen a Shuttle reentry although we both have seen meteor showers and satellites..."

...I woke up Saturday, made some coffee, and set up some chairs in our front driveway. We have a number of streetlights visible from our backyard, so I was using our house to block them out, and get a clear view of the northern skies. There were some high thin clouds, and the usual Vegas ambient light, but the major constellations were easy to see, and visibility was generally good. I woke up my oldest daughter, who woke up my youngest, and mom decided to join in also. We got outside at about 5:45 and waited. At roughly 5:56, my youngest was getting impatient, so I said "a few more minutes." I knew the window was from about 4:48 to 5:58.

Suddenly, there it was! I was holding our oldest and standing, my wife was sitting with the youngest, and she couldn't see. "Hurry, stand up!" We all watched it screaming across the sky! It was just barely above the roofline of our house, putting it about 30 degrees above the northern horizon. The vapor trail was a greenish color, similar to some meteors--in fact, it was like watching the slowest, longest meteor you ever saw. I was very excited! We continued watching until it faded into the expanding pink of the eastern sky. We saw no evidence of anything wrong..."

"My wife and I were watching the Shuttle about 5:58 a.m. or 5:59 a.m. PST. We live outside of Paso Robles, CA.

We were looking North from our deck. We saw the light given off by Columbia going on a low arc. Just at the end of the arc there was a flash of light as the Shuttle moved along its arc.

No equipment was used. It was not totally clear but we could see the light from the Shuttle going across the sky."

At about 0555 PST I observed a dull orange/red ball due north and traveling easterly at around 12 degrees elevation. There was a faint trail about 15 degrees long. The sighting lasted about 45 seconds. The Shuttle would have been in southern Nevada at the time of my observations. An impressive sight..."

"Shuttle reentry pass visible naked eye from Phoenix, AZ. First spotted at NNW. As it moved across N (~6:56 local) the trail became visible. With binos the trail looked like a thin anemic vapor trail. This was through thin clouds and with a rapidly brightening sky..."

"...The bright orange/yellow part appeared larger than Jupiter and extended back no more than 2 diameters before the pale trail began. Shuttle dropped below housetops when NE..."

"I observed the Space Shuttle Columbia's reentry from St. Helena in Napa Valley, under clear skies. I first noticed Columbia low in the western sky, and watched it fly directly overhead and into the east. It appeared as a comet-like yellowish-orange ball, with a uniform contrail. I thought it looked particularly beautiful, with brilliant stars as its background. From my vantage point on the valley floor, the contrail passed right through the up-turned handle of the Big Dipper. About 4 minutes after its passing I heard one sonic boom. I did not take any pictures or video...."

"...Observing location: Long Beach, CA on Stearns just west of Vuelta Grande looking north from bridge over flood channel with good view of Angeles Crest, Mt. Wilson, etc....

....Fast moving light moving west to east, low on horizon just over the mountains, much faster than small plane moving west to east at same time. Approximate time was 0556.

I woke up at 5:00 a.m. on February 1st and checked the Spaceflight Now web site. The crew had just been given a "go" to perform their deorbit burn (engine firing) so I loaded my equipment in my car and at 5:25 a.m. was enroute to Mountclef, my observing site. Mountclef is a high ridge in Thousand Oaks* with a good view to the north.

During my drive I had my 2-meter ham radio in the car and talked to Bob, KK6UE. He was climbing a high hill behind his house to get a view of the reentry.

Aviation and space enthusiast Jay McKee was already on-scene when I arrived at Mountclef. The sky had varying amounts of high, thin clouds. Unfortunately, they were fairly thick towards the north, exactly where Columbia was predicted to appear.

That made trying to photograph the event pointless, so I left my camera in the car. Instead, I used my tripod to hold my 10x50 binoculars.

I had expected others to join us, but it turned out to be just Jay and me. He had the foresight to bring his handheld scanner and tune it to a local ham radio repeater broadcasting the commentary from NASA TV.

I looked at my printout of azimuth and elevation data for the reentry and pointed out to Jay where we should first see the vehicle. About that time the NASA commentator said Columbia was approaching the California coast.

Glancing at my watch, I saw it was 5:53 a.m., right about the time we should first see it. Several seconds later Jay asked "Is that it?" Close to the northern horizon I immediately spotted a fuzzy, white light moving from west to east.

I quickly went to the binoculars and found the object. With optical aid the Shuttle looked like a semi-bright, white star with a slight orange hue. It did not varying in brightness or color. Behind it was a conspicuous, long, luminous trail. It was semi-transparent, uniform, and gray in color. After several seconds the Shuttle disappeared behind some thick clouds in the northeast and the display was over.

Afterwards Jay and I were pleased that we were able to see the reentry and were upbeat. I commented that I was suprised how fast it was moving.

We parted company and I drove home. At about 6:30 a.m. I was working on my computer and listening to the radio when I heard a breaking news story that the Columbia was overdue at Kennedy Space Center and an eyewitness had said the Shuttle appeared to "have two tails".

I was caught completely off guard, but I knew the Columbia was probably lost. A day that had gotten off to such a nice start took a sudden turn for the worse.

* Many years ago, part of the movie Spartacus was filmed on Mountclef, about 500 feet west of where Jay and I were standing. Specifically, the scenes of the escaped slaves' camp the night before their final battle with the Roman army were filmed there. Mountclef is also sometimes visible in the background in episodes of the vintage TV show Rawhide.

Questions and comments regarding this newsletter and editorial contributions should be directed to kd6nrp@earthlink.net

anymouse: I asked the A-M to remove your post with the sensor diagrams since it took almost 30 minutes for all those graphics to load up on my dial-up connection. They are great graphics, but I was probably the only one in the whole world that had the patience to wait to see them.

In their place, I put the following thumbnails. Click on them to see the full-sized graphic. Thanks A_M for taking care of this.

Slide 1	Slide 2	Slide 3	Slide 4
Slide 5	Slide 6	Slide 7	Slide 8
Slide 9	Slide 10	Slide 11	Slide 12
Slide 13	Slide 14	Slide 15	Slide 16
Slide 17	Slide 18	Slide 19	Slide 20
Slide 21	Slide 22	Slide 23	Slide 24
Slide 25

Sorry about that. I didn't realize that they would take so long to download. Thanks for showing the clickable thumbnails instead.

I was trying to make it easier to see the progression of sensor failures with time. If NASA converted the slides into a movie then it would help understand that the flow of distruction tends to rule out certain failure scenarios like the exploding tire theory. It is suprising that the temperature rises were so small.

With all of the hydrolic pressure sensors failing at different locations, it does lend credibility to the theory that a APU-driven hydrolic pump high-pressure hose burst. If that happened a lot could go badly quickly in numerous criticial places.

Clarification: I meant the loss of temperature data from sensors on the hydrolic actuators. That seems to be the common thread of these sensor failures.

A fellow NASA type theorized that a broken high pressure hydrolic line could have cut through the aluminum structure quite easily and then the hydrolic fluid hitting the ceramic tiles would have loosened the epoxy enough with the pressure to pop at least a few tiles off. He said that he didn't have any analysis to back up his theory, but it is a plausible scenario.

...a broken high pressure hydraulic line could have cut through the aluminum structure quite easily and then the hydraulic fluid hitting the ceramic tiles would have loosened the epoxy enough with the pressure to pop at least a few tiles off.

Exactly the kind of "out of the box" thinking that needs to be going on right now. It's too bad that many FReepers have blamed the ET TPS before all the evidence is in.

I recall that in the aftermath of the Challenger loss, I was convinced that the range safety system certainly had failed.

...and another thing.

I The range safety explosives clearly were not implicated by watching the NASA TV video of the launch.

I WAS watching NASA TV from the C-9 Console, and saw the boosters "separate" from the orbiter, and downlink from the shuttle go stale.

At that point, I had no idea what had happened. Neither did the entire firing room. We on the console were preparing for RTLS until the OTC [Roberta Wyrick] advised us otherwise.

If you are implying that the explanation of what had happened was obvious to those involved in the launch, you are ignorant of the history of that event.

Dear SnoperCod,
Speaking as someone who (like many in the NASA-Contractor "family") was personally familiar with the people aboard 51-L, I cried too. In fact, I still feel some emotional pain when the idiots at the media houses replay that launch.

I may not have been in the LCC on that morning, but I was watching live.

It was immediately apparent that it was NOT the range safety, regardless of how idiotic the analysis of Dan Rather was. Rather kept saying that a detonation by RSO was thought to be initiating the accident, as evidenced by visible ignition/explosion at the orbiter fwd attach point in a single frame of video.

You don't know who Jesse Moore is?

Hmmm... interesting...

Quoting http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/nasa_open_030206.html
Re: Comparison of 51-L response to STS-107 and Dittemore.

"Nearly seven hours later the space agency trotted out Jesse Moore, then NASA's spaceflight associate administrator, for the first press conference. He confirmed the shuttle and crew were lost but offered no discussion about what might have happened, even though history has since proved the evidence of a leaking solid rocket booster already was available.

During the coming months it was still difficult to get information. Media had to file lawsuits to gain certain types of information, officials were unavailable for interviews, no discussion of the recovered debris was allowed and talk of the status of any crew remains by any NASA public affairs was career limiting.

To get a decent story it took every news media tactic in the book, from hanging out at bars to ambushing people at their homes to even trying to sneak into people's offices.

NASA's image suffered, not only from the incident itself, but because it was perceived as a federal agency on the run, a true and fully developed government bureaucracy that couldn't be trusted."

Well it appears that the difference between you and me is that I was in the trenches doing the actual work of processing and launching shuttles, and you were somewhere in the management stucture, isolated from reality, and congratulating yourself every time what we did went well, and pointing fingers at us every time things went wrong.

Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it seems to me from reading your posts.

I have already publicly stated that I was a CISL, a TBC, and an OTC. What were you?

BTW, I'm pretty convinced that XBob was what we "hands-on workers" referred to as a "bean counter". My guess is QC.

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