At 5:42 AM CST (11:42 GMT), on the morning of 8 March 2001, Space Shuttle Discovery lit her mighty rockets and lifted off from the wetlands of Launch Complex 39B, Kennedy Space Center Florida. STS-102 spent the next 44 hours chasing the International Space Station, making rendezvous on 10 March. Docking to ISSy occured at 12:38 AM CST (8:38 GMT). The Crew of STS-102, along with the incoming ISS Expedition 2 Crew, were greeted by the ISS Expedition 1 Crew when the hatches were opened. All were rung aboard, in fine Naval tradition, by station Commander Bill Shepherd.

The primary purpose of ISS Assembly Flight 5A.1 was ISS Expedition Crew exchange. The first crew was going home, and the fresh second crew taking over for their increment. The Italian contribution to the ISS program is the MPLM, of which there are three. On this flight, the Leonardo MPLM "moving van" was employed for the first time. Carrying nearly 15 tons of supplies, the largest portion of the cargo was composed of instruments and equipment for bringing the Destiny Laboratory Module up to function. The Destiny Module had been delivered just a month earlier aboard STS-98.

Two EVAs (Extra Vehicular Activity or spacewalk) were carried out by Astronauts Andy Thomas, Susan Helms, Paul Richards, and Jim Voss. Both EVAs were successful, and included work on the MPLM to prepare it for docking to PMA-3. The spacewalks also accomplished preparation work for ISS Assembly Flight 6A, to come later.

STS-102 landed safely at Kennedy Space Center Runway 15 on 21 March 2001 at 1:33 AM CST (7:33 GMT). The Crew of Discovery flawlessly accomplished all of their assigned goals. Total flight duration was 12 days 19 hours 52 minutes.

STS-102 was the Shuttle flight which ended up inspiring Project P.R.O.V.E. The event which spawned the idea for the project was "The Washington Sequence". 

In this case, Discovery was flying docked to ISSy. NASA TV was showing us a "live" night-time view of Earth over the wide Pacific Ocean. There were thunder storms in progress on the ocean below, with many bright flashes of lightning. Then came the surprise... A bright, orb shaped, object rose up out of the cloud layer many hundreds of miles away. It flew above the cloud deck for a few seconds, and then it dove back down into the clouds, rapidly disappearing.

Perhaps something on the ground, or at the surface of the sea, was seen through a transient hole in the cloud deck? There is no airplane, or ship, capable of being seen from this distance, day OR night. Man-made devices are just too small to be visible from several hundred miles. As an example, the Gulf of Mexico is replete with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of very brightly lit oil drilling platforms. These are the size of small towns, suspended over the water on massive pilings. They're very well lit to support 24 hour a day drilling of oil wells. Yet...none can be seen at night from ISSy, or the Shuttle on orbit 220+ miles above (350+ km).

There are no cities or towns out in the huge Pacific Ocean. There are inhabited islands, but few of them have settlements large enough to be seen from space at night. The Hawaiian Islands are one notable exception.

So ships and planes were even less likely to be caught on the low-light black and white night cameras aboard Discovery that night. When one adds in the mask of artificial "snow", which NASA Select TV imposes over night broadcasts, you can then see how hopeless it is for something as "small" as a super-tanker, let alone a jet airliner, to be a naked-eye object from orbit.

When we consider how hard the INCO works to prevent us seeing these things, it's a miracle that we catch on to any of them at all!

So...let's take a look at a some visual material from the original raw video tape recorded "live" at the time. This should familiarize you with the circumstances involved with what we are seeing here.

Above is the anomalous object which got past the NASA censors that night. It went too fast for them to delete it, but you can bet that it wasn't shown in the Flight Day Highlights. Too bad, because this thing defies conventional explanation. There is NOTHING man-made that can do what this thing did. Rise above the cloud deck, and be not only visible from the distance of ISSy, but to also be so very bright. It's hard to understand the sort of candlepower needed for a light like this to be seen from high on orbit.

A curious aspect to this incident is that once again, we see an anomaly associated with thunderstorms and lightning flashes. Another example of this tie between anomalies and lightning is the STS-96 Florida Sequence, so complicated it is divided into five parts.

This object which rose above the cloud layer below, and dove back in, remains unexplained by conventional means. It appears to be a true unknown.

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At all times during this incident, the camera was under the control of the INCO in Houston Mission Control.

(INCO - INstrument & Communication Officer - The man in Houston Mission Control Center who is responsible for operating the Shuttle payload bay, and robotic arm, cameras. In the case of ISS, this officer is referred to as the CATO - Communications And Tracking Officer. In both cases, these persons CONTROL everything which is PERMITTED to go out on broadcast to the public. It is a commonly believed falacy that the cameras are operated by Astronauts & Cosmonauts on the Shuttles, and Space Station. Very little camera work is done by the crews. They're way too busy for that.)

At the end of the day, it's up to YOU to draw your own conclusions.

© 2005 Jeff Challender