STS-111 The Japan Incident
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| STS-111 The Japan Incident |
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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. |
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| STS-111
Launch |
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| Zero-G
Fun |
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| Perrin
On EVA |
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| Installing
MBS |
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| STS-111
Landing |
THE
EVENT |
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In this case, Endeavour was passing over the island nation of Japan in the middle of local night. At this time, Endeavour was flying solo. As the Sea of Japan passed below in the darkness, a huge cluster of very bright lights came into view. These lights, upon close examination, were found not to be cities, ships, planes, or anything else normally encountered in the night as seen from orbit. Ships and planes are absolutely invisible from 240 miles away, which is the altitude that the Shuttle orbits when on a mission to ISS. These strange lights can be seen in the series of photos below. This writer does not know what they are, only what they are not. Cities can easily be seen from space, but never display sharp outlines like these lights. They always show a fuzzy aspect toward the edges, as can be ascertained by the last photo in the series, a night time view of Tokyo Japan, and its environs. The only sharp outline in the area is the division between land and the bay, where the water is pure black. Credit for first discovery of this incident goes to Dr. Oren Swearingen of Texas, for his dedicated work in combing through raw footage from NASA's live TV feed. Thank you Doctor! After getting the "heads up" from Oren, I went through my own recording for that time, and also found the incident. So all pictures seen on this page are from that footage. As an additional surprise, an almost identical event was found from the flight of STS-112, in October 2002. You may compare the two cases by looking over the page pertaining to that one by clicking HERE. Decide for yourself what you think these lights might be, hovering over the Sea of Japan. |
| SETTING
THE SCENE |
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Circled in yellow are the group of lights we are interested in. |
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THE
JAPAN INCIDENT |
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This 10 frame animated GIF illustrates the cluster of lights as Endeavour flew over the Sea of Japan at 17,500 mph (28,000 km/h). They certainly are strange. |
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ENHANCEMENTS |
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This is a single frame from the event, with colors reversed. |
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Here we see the same frame as above, but embossed for a 3D effect against a neutral grey background. |
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The magnificent city of Tokyo and suburbs all aglow in the night. Note how the edges of the urbanised areas have a decidedly fuzzy, and indistinct appearance, unlike the sharp outlines mystery lights. |
What the mystery lights might be is an unanswered question. They were not ships, planes, or anything else which normally could be seen from orbit in the Sea of Japan. So, for lack of a conventional explanation, I classify these "orbs" 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
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