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Please watch carefully to see the very fast object come from behind the wing, and go straight up into deep space. Please bear in mind that in the original VHS tape of the "live" event, everything you see here was moving at ( or more than )THREE TIMES the speed of the animations provided on this page. This thing was REALLY MOVING at blistering speed! I've slowed this object down a great deal, just so that you can see it at all.

The first thing which comes to mind as an explanation for the velocity of this object is that it came from one of the RCS thruster jets. ( Reaction Control System ). Well, let's think about this for a second. The RCS jets are mounted in groups at the nose and tail of Shuttles ( PDF File 150 kb. Requires Acrobat Reader ). If you trace the path of the anomaly back to it's "origin", you can see that it comes from under the middle of the wing. There are NO thrusters in that location. So we can safely rule out this possibility.

Another common location for debris, especially during the first hours and days on orbit, is the payload bay. Bits of junk usually is seen coming out of the bay when the doors are first opened. It's obvious that the object came from nowhere near the payload bay either.

Even if a debunker tried to claim this object was actually debris coming out of the payload bay just hours after Atlantis reached orbit, ask yourself WHAT could give it such great, and instant, acceleration? WHAT is making it go so fast? To this writer's knowledge, ice chips and debris do NOT have engines. Nothing accelerates "From 0 to 60" almost instantaneously without the addition of ENERGY, known amongst NASA people, and physicists, as Delta-V. This object defies all conventional explanation.

Also, note once again, that the fellow in suspenders is looking right at the object as it makes its flight past the Shuttle's starboard wing. Due to the observable shaking and jerking of the video, it's certain that this was one of the rare occaisions when an Astronaut was shooting the film with a hand held camera. Perhaps the crew wanted input, from ground control, on that damage to the leading edge of the tail.

Space Shuttle Atlantis served well during the flight of STS-98 in February 2001. Liftoff from Launch Pad 39A Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral Florida, took place on 7 February 2001 at 5:13 PM CST (23:13 GMT). This marked the first NASA Shuttle flight of the 21st Century (Many think that the century & millenium began on New Year's Day 2000, but this is erroneous. The 20th Century ended at Midnight 31 December 2000). Atlantis docked to the International Space Station on 9 February, at 10:51 AM CST (16:51 GMT). When the hatches between the spacecraft were opened, the Crew of STS-98 were rung aboard Navy style by Commander Bill Shepherd of ISS Expedition 1. This was ISS Assembly Mission 5A, and its main task was the intallation of the new US built Destiny Laboratory Module. Three EVAs (Extra Vehicular Activity or spacewalk) were carried out by Astronauts Robert Curbeam and Thomas D. Jones, who helped install and connect Destiny. They executed a number of other tasks outside the Shuttle/Station Complex as well. The science side of the flight included the on orbit SIMPLEX experiment. The mission ended on 20 February 2001, with a safe landing on Runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base (NASA's Dryden Research Center) in the California desert, at 3:33 PM EST (20:33 GMT). My colleague L.L. Wille had access to the NASA internal engineering channel at the time, and captured photos after the landing which showed that the brakes on the port side main landing gear had failed, with a large hydraulic fluid leak seen in the photo at bottom right. Total duration: 12 days 21 hours 21 minutes. On Atlantis' second orbit, some three hours after liftoff, she passed directly over my [then] home in Sacramento, California. This was the very first time I video taped a Shuttle pass. It was some six weeks later, during the flight of STS-102, that the real inspiration for Project P.R.O.V.E. came to me.
	STS-98 Liftoff

	Robert Curbeam

	Thomas D. Jones

	Destiny Module

	Landing

SETTING THE SCENE
	Damaged area seen within yellow circle. It looks like, just as with Columbia on 16 January 2003, Atlantis was smacked by something during liftoff and ascent to orbit. Please note the man in suspenders (blue circle) eyeing that damaged spot. He became very excited, and walked over to another desk pointing it out to his colleagues.

	The same fellow, pointing out the damage to the heat resistant tiles on the vertical tail. By the time he made it over to the other desk, the camera had moved away from the damaged portion. And during his walk, the anomalous object went whizzing up from behind Atlantis' starboard wing. This fellow saw the object, without a shadow of a doubt, but turned away. I have it on good authority that anomalous objects are seen so often by NASA personnel that they are more or less routine.
Next a little help finding the object.

	The TV view from space is inside the area marked by the yellow rectangle. Note once again the man in suspenders. The object has just appeared from behind Atlantis' wing, and he's looking right directly at it.
Next is a blow-up of the area in the yellow rectangle. This should help you understand what you are looking at, and where to see the object. Remember, this object is fast, and not so easy to see. It's there all right, but it's not the most "in your face" anomaly. This one is subtle, but no less important for its speed, and point of origin. We'll get into that later; for now the enhancement.

	Note the location of everything in this field of view. We have here a blow-up of the TV screen at the front of the Mission Control Room in Houston. The very fact that the anomaly comes streaking up from the middle of the starboard (right) wing of Atlantis shows that it is not ice peeling off the engines, nor is it ice coming from the thruster pack mounted in the vicinity of the visible engine nacelle. Its speed, and straight-up trajectory, belies any Shuttle based origin.
*THE FAST* ONE**

	Now we have a zoom-in on that screen at the front of Mission Control. The object is much easier to see now. The speed has been slowed considerably to make the object easier to follow.

	The same zoom animation with colors reversed.

	In this instance, the zoom clip has been embossed to help you see the object against a neutral background.
This is the first, but by no means the only, anomalous event from STS-98. This one is somewhat different in that we have evidence here that NASA personnel see these things, as a matter of course, on the job. That alone makes this event significant. ***** At the end of the day, it's up to YOU to draw your own conclusions. © 2005 Jeff Challender**



STS-98 The FAST One! DVDs Now Available At Project P.R.O.V.E.!