5 June 2002 was a beautiful Spring day at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral Florida. At 4:23 PM CDT (21:23 GMT) that afternoon, Space Shuttle .Endeavour lifted off from Launch Pad 39A to begin the flight of STS-111. ISS Assembly Flight UF-2 chased ISSy for the next 43 hours with an eye to rendezvous and docking. Final docking took place on 7 June at 11:32 AM CDT (16:32 GMT). The STS-111 Crew, along with the fresh and ready Expedition Five Crew, were enthusiastically greeted by the soon to be homebound ISS Expedition Four Crew.

As well as being a crew ferry flight, STS-111 also delivered 5600 lbs. (2540 kg) of supplies (Food and drygoods) and new equipment to be used by Expedition Five. These included eight Resupply Stowage Racks, five Resupply Stowage Platforms, two International Stowage Racks and two new scientific experiment racks for the station. The new science rack, EXPRESS Rack 3, will increase the orbital outpost's science capabilities. The other scientific rack is the Microgravity Science Glovebox. All of this Cargo was packed inside the Leonardo MPLM "moving van" carried in Endeavour's payload bay.

Three EVAs (Extra-Vehicular Activity or spacewalk) were mounted from the Quest Joint Airlock Module by US Astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz and CNES (French Space Agency) Phillipe Perrin on flight days 5, 7, and 9. The focus of the first two EVAs was installation and outfitting of the Canadian built MBS (Mobile Remote Servicer Base System - Film HERE). In the third and last EVA, one of the wrist roll joints was replaced on the Station's robotic arm, Canadarm2.

After eight days of joint operations, the three crews said their goodbyes, and the Shuttle undocked from ISSy. Undocking occured at 9:32 AM CDT (14:32 GMT) on 15 June 2002. From this point on, STS-111 flew alone, leaving the Expedition Five crew to carry on with their mission. After being waved off two times for a touch-down at the KSC Shuttle Landing Facility, it was decided to bring the Shuttle in at Edwards Air Force Base (NASA's Dryden Research Center) in the California desert. Endeavour landed safely on runway 22 at 12:58 PM CDT (17:58 GMT) 19 June 2002. The flight had lasted one day longer than originally scheduled. Total duration 13 days 20 hours 36 minutes.

The following incident was first brought to my attention by my good friend and colleague, Dr. Oren Swearingen of Texas.

A very unusual event took place over the Northern Pacific Ocean, just east of the Kamchatka peninsula in Siberia, Russia.

The INCO was letting us have a few moments of downlink TV from the payload bay cameras as the crew were sleeping. At first, we had color TV from Endeavour. In mere seconds though, the link was switched to a black & white low-light camera in another corner of the Shuttle's payload bay. Sunset, and night, were approaching whilst this event took place. In fact, lens flares caused by the low angle of the setting Sun do a lot to confuse the scene.

A number of anomalous objects came into the field of view when the black & white camera was telescopically zoomed in on the dark face of Earth below. We will focus our attention on three of them. These three appeared to rendezvous, and momentarily come together in a triangular formation, before disappearing separately in the direction of the night side of Earth. One of these objects also executed a very sharp and sudden turn, after first coming to a complete stop, during its time in sight. Another made a very curious curved turn after the "rendezvous". All three simply vanished, rather than leaving the field of view toward the edge of the screen.

Our first four frames, taken from the original VHS tape recorded live at the time, depicts the venue. All video was recorded from the "live" TV signal as broadcast by NASA Select TV.

Within seconds, the INCO switched to the black & white low-light camera. Now the direction is to the northwest. The line of bright lights, and the concentric rings are lens flares caused by the setting Sun.

Just seconds later, the telescopic lens was zoomed in on the center of this view, above the night-time Pacific Ocean east of Kamchatka.

This little animated GIF illustrates the Mission Control Room front screen tracking map. Frame 1. is from before the event, and Frame 2. came after the "live" downlink concluded. Endeavour is centered in the lower part of the three pane map, and the Kamchatka peninsula of eastern Siberia is pointed out.

Next, the event in animated GIFs.

Here we have the entire sequence in 40 frames taken from the original VHS recording. This is the normal view as broadcast.

All three of the animations are at around 10 times normal speed.

Now colors have been reversed to perhaps make the objects easier to see.

The objects seen in this incident do not behave as normal ice or debris. They come from different directions, seem to rendezvous, and take off on multiple trajectories, at varying speeds. Were their motion due to the firing of an RCS (Reaction Control System) thruster, we can expect that they would be influenced together. This did not happen. The objects each had their own separate path in and out of the field of view.

Astronomical bodies such as the Moon, planets, and stars are out of the question. The view is against the darkened face of Earth. Meteors can be ruled out because the never execute turns, or change speed.

For these reasons, I classify these objects as unknown.

***

At all times during this incident, the camera was under the control of the CATO 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. He also remotely operates the helmet cameras in space suits. 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