Author Topic: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?  (Read 22048 times)

Offline X-EtnA-X

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Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« on: 02/25/2011 02:51 am »


I was watching this on Live NASA TV, and I wanted to recorded the doors opening off the shuttle, so I began to record using fraps, and a mysterious black dot moving really really fast appears at the bottom left (:11 SECONDS). Can't be a bird, too fast. Can't be a satellite, too low (it fades under the clouds). Can't be a plane or jet (Military is suppost to be shut down on shuttle schedules?).

This is after the launch of the Discovery 1:53PM PST, 2/24/2011

Edit: If I'm correct, if you get caught on the Earth's orbit, wouldn't you be moving in one direction only? The direction at which the video BELOW is moving in different directions?
« Last Edit: 02/25/2011 06:36 am by X-EtnA-X »

Offline rdale

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #1 on: 02/25/2011 02:56 am »
Piece of ice or other debris, maybe a washer, etc. Nothing "flying" but just floating away.

Offline MKremer

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #2 on: 02/25/2011 03:30 am »
I don't believe I've ever seen a door opening video where something hasn't floated away.

Considering the amount of payload bay work done in the OPF between missions, it's actually a tribute to the OPF workers that there are really so few debris available to be liberated in each launch.

Offline majormajor42

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #3 on: 02/25/2011 03:39 am »
Looks like it came right off the door latch.  For the few seconds before :11, you can see a little movement on that latch.  Even after that object lets go, there is still something loose there.

As far as fading in and out of clouds, it looks to me that the object, which is very close to the shuttle, is just rotating.  It appears to be disk shaped so when it rotates edge on, it is very hard to see for a split second.
...water is life and it is out there, where we intend to go. I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man or machine on a body such as the Moon and harvest a cup of water for a human to drink or process into fuel for their craft.

Offline X-EtnA-X

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #4 on: 02/25/2011 03:49 am »
That kinda would be wrong.

The comm person in charge of updating us says that the doors open, and then they open, and he says it right at around :20, and says the doors are now opening, and THEN THEY OPEN. He said all that after the object appeared, indicating no doors where open BEFORE the object appeared.
« Last Edit: 02/25/2011 03:50 am by X-EtnA-X »

Offline Namechange User

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #5 on: 02/25/2011 03:57 am »
So what do you think it is X?
Enjoying viewing the forum a little better now by filtering certain users.

Offline M_Puckett

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #6 on: 02/25/2011 04:04 am »
Looks like a washer floating out of the payload bay close to the camera to me.

Offline danduc

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #7 on: 02/25/2011 04:05 am »
Well, we did see a plane nearby about 15-20 sec. after launch. Could that one be tha NASA plane?

danduc

Offline X-EtnA-X

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #8 on: 02/25/2011 04:06 am »
Well it could just be debris, that's as close as it can get I guess lol,  I am just saying no door opened at all before it happened, and the speed of it is just incredible.
« Last Edit: 02/25/2011 04:08 am by X-EtnA-X »

Offline MKremer

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #9 on: 02/25/2011 04:11 am »
Well, we did see a plane nearby about 15-20 sec. after launch. Could that one be tha NASA plane?

danduc

I don't think NASA has any planes that small that can hitch a ride to orbit.  :D

Offline Namechange User

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #10 on: 02/25/2011 04:15 am »
Well it could just be debris, that's as close as it can get I guess lol,  I am just saying no door opened at all before it happened.

It is debris.  The payload bay is a large volume even when the doors are closed.

I saw this in the MER as it was being shown for the first time.  Some of us joked about UFOs and how it would appear on the net somewhere.  Once I had to answer a FOIA request correlating thruster firings to ice/debris moving through frame and suddenly changing direction and accelerating to prove they were not UFOs.  True story.
« Last Edit: 02/25/2011 04:20 am by OV-106 »
Enjoying viewing the forum a little better now by filtering certain users.

Offline X-EtnA-X

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #11 on: 02/25/2011 04:18 am »
Haha! Well it has appeared LOL!

Offline majormajor42

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #12 on: 02/25/2011 05:14 am »
That kinda would be wrong.

The comm person in charge of updating us says that the doors open, and then they open, and he says it right at around :20, and says the doors are now opening, and THEN THEY OPEN. He said all that after the object appeared, indicating no doors where open BEFORE the object appeared.

I'm kinda thinking  you are not seeing what you think you are seeing based on this post I'm quoting.  There are two doors.  A port door and a stbd door.  At the moment that the video that you posted begins, the starboard door is already open and the port door has yet to open.  The PAO confirms this at :20 by stating that the stbd door has opened first without issue.  Then the port door starts opening.

The camera angle is from within the cargo bay.  If the stbd door wasn't already open you would not be able to see the Earth in the beginning of the video.  If you look around, you might be able to find another video that shows the stbd door opening, which might give you a better perspective of what you are looking at here.

here's one:

at :35 seconds you even get another one of your UFOs as a bonus!
« Last Edit: 02/25/2011 05:19 am by majormajor42 »
...water is life and it is out there, where we intend to go. I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man or machine on a body such as the Moon and harvest a cup of water for a human to drink or process into fuel for their craft.

Offline missinglink

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #13 on: 02/25/2011 07:43 am »
I'm surprised to see the payload doors open so rapidly. Don't you want to be slow and deliberate in space? What's the rush?

Offline X-EtnA-X

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #14 on: 02/25/2011 07:46 am »
Maybe that could be the reason a debris just teared apart?

Offline DaveS

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #15 on: 02/25/2011 08:20 am »
Maybe that could be the reason a debris just teared apart?
Probably just a thruster firing. They happen every now and then to maintain the correct attitude within the set deadbands.
"For Sardines, space is no problem!"
-1996 Astronaut class slogan

"We're rolling in the wrong direction but for the right reasons"
-USA engineer about the rollback of Discovery prior to the STS-114 Return To Flight mission

Offline Chris Bergin

Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #16 on: 02/25/2011 11:17 am »
Welcome to the site's forum, X - and you've done the right thing by coming here to ask what the folk here make of it.

We all know there's plenty of videos on youtube where people have assumed there's fleets of UFOs dancing around orbiters - when it's footage of a water dump :)

Anyhoo, yes - debris. As explained above.
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Offline Gene DiGennaro

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #17 on: 02/25/2011 01:00 pm »
We all know there's plenty of videos on youtube where people have assumed there's fleets of UFOs dancing around orbiters - when it's footage of a water dump :)



The constellation Urion! :)
« Last Edit: 02/25/2011 01:01 pm by Gene DiGennaro »

Offline lcs

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #18 on: 02/25/2011 02:00 pm »
I'm surprised to see the payload doors open so rapidly. Don't you want to be slow and deliberate in space? What's the rush?
This was a ground playback, not live.  They often play back these sequences X2 speed to save time. 

Offline JimO

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #19 on: 02/25/2011 02:06 pm »
As a dabbler in both worlds, I've long felt that 'UFO sightings' could in some cases be indicators of space-related stuff of genuine interest -- for example, in the USSR the top cases of the 1960s to 1980s were caused by public misperceptions of secret military space and rocket activity.

On spaceflight, it's important to keep tabs on stuff you see drifting by, as NASA does, because of the chance it's a piece of your own vehicle, or an undetected tank leak of some sort.

Here are examples of how this has been a real spaceflight issue:

06/12/2008 - MSNBC.com: Why NASA watches out for true UFOs
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25147760/

Apollo era:
Moon Pigeons and other unidentified visual phenomena associated with space flight [1970 NASA study of Apollo-era funnies outside the windows]
http://www.jamesoberg.com/moonpigeons.html

Shuttle/ISS era:
07/23/1993 - Oberg NASA briefing: Mitigation of Hazards of Spacecraft-Generated Debris
[argues for more careful observation of all anomalous external objects]
http://www.jamesoberg.com/9307xx-sc-generated-debris.PDF


Post Columbia disaster

03/18/2003 - MSNBC.com: Was ‘mystery object’ a shuttle clue?
http://www.msnbc.com/news/887192.asp?0cv=TA01

09/29/2003 - Space News [weekly trade paper]: Shuttles Should Keep Eyes Open in Orbit
http://www.jamesoberg.com/09292003eyesopen_col.html

Offline dvsmith

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #20 on: 02/25/2011 02:10 pm »
I'm surprised to see the payload doors open so rapidly. Don't you want to be slow and deliberate in space? What's the rush?

I think you're looking at this from a sea-level mentality.

The payload bay doors are relatively lightweight and, well, there's very little atmosphere at the Shuttle's orbital altitude, so it's not as if they have to be concerned about air resistance when opening. And, on orbit, they're not operating against gravity, as you would expect on Earth's surface.

The only real reasons for something to move slowly or deliberately, on orbit, is: fine motor control for delicate structures (the bay actuators have built-in stops), debris liberation (typically not a concern for such a "simple" structure as the bay doors) and imparting rotational forces (the mass of the doors is tiny compared to the rest of the orbiter).

Offline X-EtnA-X

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #21 on: 02/25/2011 09:12 pm »
This wasn't a playback, it was LIVE. The shuttle doors opened at that speed.

Offline danduc

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #22 on: 02/25/2011 11:17 pm »
Well, we did see a plane nearby about 15-20 sec. after launch. Could that one be tha NASA plane?

danduc

We definitively saw either an airliner or something the size of a Gulfstream near the smoke trail It was heading north). Even my son said it was strange. There is a Notam in effect but could it be the Nasa airplane? Does it fly in the area when the lift-off is taking place?

Dan

Offline rdale

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #23 on: 02/26/2011 03:24 am »
None of the planes land until after launch.

Offline Sparky

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #24 on: 02/26/2011 03:49 am »
Well, we did see a plane nearby about 15-20 sec. after launch. Could that one be tha NASA plane?

danduc

We definitively saw either an airliner or something the size of a Gulfstream near the smoke trail It was heading north). Even my son said it was strange. There is a Notam in effect but could it be the Nasa airplane? Does it fly in the area when the lift-off is taking place?

Dan

Perhaps, but unless you were in orbit at the time, I doubt it was the same thing.

Offline MikeMi.

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #25 on: 02/26/2011 09:26 am »
Well, we did see a plane nearby about 15-20 sec. after launch. Could that one be tha NASA plane?

danduc

We definitively saw either an airliner or something the size of a Gulfstream near the smoke trail It was heading north). Even my son said it was strange. There is a Notam in effect but could it be the Nasa airplane? Does it fly in the area when the lift-off is taking place?

Dan

Perhaps, but unless you were in orbit at the time, I doubt it was the same thing.

Heh I'm wondering if you talk about this plane (Ft. Lauderdale on course to Atlanta) ;) Must say that's stunning view, even without sound :)


Offline X-EtnA-X

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #26 on: 02/26/2011 10:58 am »
Isn't the object .... kinda too fast to even be a plane ?

The shuttle orbiting is going at a fast extreme speed.

Offline Zpoxy

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #27 on: 03/01/2011 03:00 am »
Looks like it came right off the door latch.  For the few seconds before :11, you can see a little movement on that latch.  Even after that object lets go, there is still something loose there.

As far as fading in and out of clouds, it looks to me that the object, which is very close to the shuttle, is just rotating.  It appears to be disk shaped so when it rotates edge on, it is very hard to see for a split second.

There's no movement there, you're seeing video artifacts on the latch guide. There is nothing to move on the left door, the active latch hooks are on the right side door which is already open and out of view over the right wing. The other posters are correct, probably a washer, maybe a blanket button, perhaps a piece of ice.
« Last Edit: 03/01/2011 03:01 am by Zpoxy »

Offline rdale

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Re: Mysterious Object Fly-By After Discovery Launch?
« Reply #28 on: 03/01/2011 11:19 am »
Isn't the object .... kinda too fast to even be a plane ?

Have you read any of our replies? It is not a plane.

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