STS-75 Tether Incident - Mystery solved! Breaking News!

reply to post by finnegan


Hmmm you forgot the best part...

The most famous sustained arc event of all led to the breakage of the TSS-1R electrodynamic tether, and the loss of the attached satellite. Figure 8 shows the burned, frayed and broken tether end still attached to the Shuttle after the break. Incidentally, the tether continued arcing long after it and its satellite were drifting free, until finally it went into night conditions where the electron density was insufficient to sustain the arc

Thanks for the TSS-1 link (Had the LEO one and actually posted it a few times in the past)


Yegads!! $259.00 A little steep for a research paper... anyone have a PDF?

STS 46 was the first attempt to release the tether


[edit on 31-3-2008 by zorgon]

reply to post by finnegan


Holy Frickin Crap! Finnegan I think you just struck the jackpot here, as far as data goes. Thank you. Zorgon is this what you meant to post earlier? The nasas-unknowns.com link is a dead one for me... Thank you for posting the content though, from where-ever it was you were trying to link!

Regarding Finnegans post again, these reports are huge, and it's going to take me a while (all of us a while ) to read through them. Thank you for finding this information Finnegan, and also ArMaP for finding the info on the Tether.

Nablator, I absolutely understand, and I feel the same way about your work. It's so nice to have such talented individuals coming together from different viewpoints to help solve these mysteries.

Just to mention also, I think the only really relative information on we're still looking for are the relative positions of the Shuttle and the Tether to Earth. There seem to be some distance values present though, I'm sort of lost in all of the posts on what is what. If we can establish a clear triangle, with 3 distances:

1) From The Earth to the Shuttle
2) From the Shuttle to the Tether
3) From the Tether to the Earth

We can tell a lot about the situation.

I'm sorry if I missed those values, I know that some of them were mentioned. I just think we should collect these values and agree on them, so that we can all be using the same values for any calculations we're going to make to approximate speeds, size, etc.

-WFA

p.s. What the heck happened to the Original Poster? Wasn't that person actually interested in what these objects might be?

reply to post by zorgon


I got the first link and the last one just now as .pdf
I couldn't get the google book page to load.

At any rate, these are large documents with lots of data. I'm a happy camper

Try 'save target as' to get the .pdfs for the other two!

-WFA

Originally posted by WitnessFromAfar
Zorgon is this what you meant to post earlier? The nasas-unknowns.com link is a dead one for me... Thank you for posting the content though, from where-ever it was you were trying to link!

Yup that was it I just wasn't going to release that file again No one paid attention the last few times I did

Here it is in zip...
www.thelivingmoon.com...

And just to stir the pot...

How about a paper that says NASA was working on electromagnetic shielding in 1964? I wonder if that's where Gene Rodenberry got his ideas... "Raise the Shields, Mr Chekov!"

ntrs.nasa.gov...

As to that other non working link... yeah its no longer available... (that happens a LOT lately when seeking answers... vanishing pages) HOWEVER, Google cache sometimes yields gems

Sigh I guess I have to do all the work
CACHE file of NASAs-Unknowns

Save it before its refreshed

Originally posted by WitnessFromAfar
Try 'save target as' to get the .pdfs for the other two!

Thanks but I have thousands of PDF's in our database... I actually ordered LEO hard copy from NASA years ago...

What I was asking is if anyone has found that book in PDF format... as I don't find that one worth 250.00 plus


[edit on 31-3-2008 by zorgon]

Here's the full section that contains the camera info
AngelSprite

Much obliged..

LOTS of Sprite and jet info there





[edit on 31-3-2008 by zorgon]

reply to post by finnegan


Congrats for finding the camera info. From your first link, with telephoto lens, the FOV is 4° by 3°. The ratio between the amount of vertical jittering (j) and the floater's distance (d) to the camera is tan(parallax). As parallax in my frame captures is greater than 0.2°, an upper bound to d is j / tan(0.2°) = j x 286.

reply to post by nablator

You are denying the simple explanation, trying to obfuscate the issue. There is nothing mysterious about the "glow" and floaters. How many people have posted videos and images of disks, even with notches, made filming small out of focus lights at night?

Do you ignore the physics when it comes to this then?
On this however i rather rely on the physics than a camera.

Lets try something easy...

The shuttle is travelling around 17000mph Source.
That is around 4,7 miles per second...

Now when the shuttle ejects its water/debris it gets momentum.
Which it did not have before the ejection, now when this happens they also get a trajectory, away from the shuttle.
1.....2.....3 seconds the shuttle has travelled 14,166 miles since ejection.

So by your physics in this, to get the particles around the shuttle, first they have to change their trajectory then they have to change their speed to gain on the shuttle so that they could put themself like a cloud around it.
So, from going to a few meters per second, they have to change their trajectory and then increase in speed to overtake the shuttle, this is plausible to you....

Any examples, supporting evidence? I would like to grasp your concepts of false parallax, glowing polarized static charges, and your theory about water and ice not being able of hold a static charge. Do you deny that static charges are involved in lightning? Are clouds not water and ice?

No, i have never denied that....
But what happens with water/ice here on earth is that the electrons of the static charge interacts with the ions in the water.
But as water boils and freezes solid at the same time in space i do not believe that there are any ions left to work as conductor on these ice particles (even if we are not talking about electrical conductiveness the static charge needs a conductive to work but has nothing to do with the electrical conductiveness).

I can not prove this, it is only one of my theories.

As i stated in my first post....

I don't understand why the static charges, polarized or not would be visible. If you think some sort of plasma surrounds objects in space, you have a lot more explaining to do.

Why is the tether visible as it is?
It's less than 1cm in width, and it was also visible from earth....
If we could see objects in space that has a size around 1 cm and lit like the tether is, explained as being the sun... why do we not see more objects in that size?

A question: do you have an alternate theory about everything? Is there anything about mainstream physics that you agree on? I mean, if we have no common ground, there is no point discussing anything.

I've just explained something for you that only had something to do with mainstream physics, but which you have choosen to ignore due to the camera....

Thank you for your patience, and don't take me wrong, You, Armap and Balez (and other posters) have all my respect for your research on the subject.

Same here, whatever it is we are discussing, we are trying to find a solution to a problem, we wont do that if we become unfriendly to eachother.

Dont take me wrong, i love to discuss, there really is not much else in life that you gain so much from as discussing things, sometimes i can discuss just because of the discussion, not because i have something to prove, but to learn.

I think that all the people that has discussed this, put their ideas forth, had theories and just contributing on this should get an applause from the mods

Originally posted by Balez

 

1.....2.....3 seconds the shuttle has travelled 14,166 miles since ejection.

Jettisoned debris would travel the same amount, more or less, unless they somehow instantly stop as soon as they are ejected. Why would they stop or even quickly decelerate?

Why is the tether visible as it is?

You must be right about the tether. The ionosphere is a plasma, basically, but it should only glow when there's an electrical discharge AFAIK. My (very limited) understanding is: there's a difference of potential between the ionosphere at the two extremities, assuming the tether is still vertical. Shouldn't the extremities of the tether glow, then, as in the well known corona discharge phenomenon? I admit I don't understand.

Same here, whatever it is we are discussing, we are trying to find a solution to a problem, we wont do that if we become unfriendly to each other.

Please accept my apology for my bad manners. It was not my intention, really. Hey, even my horoscope says everyone I meet today will suffer for my temper.

Don't take me wrong, i love to discuss, there really is not much else in life that you gain so much from as discussing things, sometimes i can discuss just because of the discussion, not because i have something to prove, but to learn.

That's why I'm here too. Thanks to all the contributors to this thread.

reply to post by nablator

Jettisoned debris would travel the same amount, more or less, unless they somehow instantly stop as soon as they are ejected. Why would they stop or even quickly decelerate?

Yes if they are in a constant (the shuttle) that is true, but when they get jettisoned, or ejected, their momentum change, now they are no longer at a constant with the shuttle.
When this happens they also get a different trajectory than the shuttle.

As an example:
Lets say we have a ball.
If you stand in the shuttle's payload area and you just place this ball, which means releasing it very carefully to not disturb it too much as giving it any momentum.
Then this ball will stay where it is within the shuttles momentum, while not having any momentum itself.

However if you take this ball and throw it straight out from the payload area, you are breaking the constant it had with the shuttle, and you are also changing it's momentum and trajectory.

The same happens with the water/ice/debris that the shuttle eject, which means that there has to be a force in this ejection to get the debris out from this constant.
Otherwise they would stay where they are.

You must be right about the tether. The ionosphere is a plasma, basically, but it should only glow when there's an electrical discharge AFAIK. My (very limited) understanding is: there's a difference of potential between the ionosphere at the two extremities, assuming the tether is still vertical. Shouldn't the extremities of the tether glow, then, as in the well known corona discharge phenomenon? I admit I don't understand.

Same here, i dont understand this either.
But i theorized that the tether was highly charged on energies and that charge stayed with the tether as what happens when you charge a battery.
I can say that i do not know what was the intention with the charge, or what the scientists were going to do with it after they proved that it was possible to do this.

It was supposedly the charge that broke the tether...
I know it is just a theory, i dont claim it to be right either.

Please accept my apology for my bad manners. It was not my intention, really. Hey, even my horoscope says everyone I meet today will suffer for my temper.

I dont think you were bad-mannered in any way.
So there is no need to apologize at all

But i do agree with you, the sts-75 footage can be frustrating at times, because not only do we have the camera to count in to this, but also the behaviour of the shuttle, the tether itself and why it is as it is, and also the debris.
But i am sure, whatever the conclusion is, we will get to it somehow and in the end agree on it

I suspect I'm pushing up an oooold thread here but ahh what the hell. I've also go to read through more responses - but it's time for me to get to sleep so I'll just give my opinion as of right now.

I'm somewhat surprised by the lack of commentary in the video on the 'swimming' objects, it's almost like they avoid it and if they talked about it I actually think I'd be less suspicious.

I also don't think that video on earth holds up. The object is really clear in that, sharp. It's also stationary, it only 'moves' when the camera moves. Whereas in the original, we have many, many objects all moving and independantly of one another.

If it was just dust on the lens, wouldn't they move all together in-tune with the camera movements?

Jury is still out for me. These are the most convincing UFO videos I've ever seen I must say.

Originally posted by Balez

Yes if they are in a constant (the shuttle) that is true, but when they get jettisoned, or ejected, their momentum change, now they are no longer at a constant with the shuttle.
When this happens they also get a different trajectory than the shuttle.

Thanks for explaining. So you assume the debris are always thrown out into space with significant speed relative to the shuttle. That would be the case with RCS thrusters, but not with other sources of debris: leaks, dumps, etc.

Quoted from a STS-48 UFO video debunking article:

There are more than 50 sources of ice on the shuttle, plus a steady source of debris such as insulation flakes from inside the payload bay. This includes 38 primary RCS jets and 6 vernier jets (which burn the hypergolic [self-igniting] propellants of nitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine), an air dump line, a waste water dump line, a supply water dump line, two fuel cell purge lines (the hydrogen one is always leaking water), two flash evaporators, a water spray boiler, and so forth. No surprise, then, that floating debris near the shuttle is a common sight. The particles usually (not always) spin, and depending on the axis of spin they may or may not flash, and depending on the speed of spin their flicker may or may not be picked up by the camera CCD scanner.

This is about STS-48, but why would STS-75 be different?

[edit on 2008-3-31 by nablator]

Originally posted by nablator

Originally posted by Balez

Yes if they are in a constant (the shuttle) that is true, but when they get jettisoned, or ejected, their momentum change, now they are no longer at a constant with the shuttle.
When this happens they also get a different trajectory than the shuttle.

Thanks for explaining. So you assume the debris are always thrown out into space with significant speed relative to the shuttle. That would be the case with RCS thrusters, but not with other sources of debris: leaks, dumps, etc.

Quoted from a STS-48 UFO video debunking article:

There are more than 50 sources of ice on the shuttle, plus a steady source of debris such as insulation flakes from inside the payload bay. This includes 38 primary RCS jets and 6 vernier jets (which burn the hypergolic [self-igniting] propellants of nitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine), an air dump line, a waste water dump line, a supply water dump line, two fuel cell purge lines (the hydrogen one is always leaking water), two flash evaporators, a water spray boiler, and so forth. No surprise, then, that floating debris near the shuttle is a common sight. The particles usually (not always) spin, and depending on the axis of spin they may or may not flash, and depending on the speed of spin their flicker may or may not be picked up by the camera CCD scanner.

This is about STS-48, but why would STS-75 be different?

[edit on 2008-3-31 by nablator]

There is nothing different about it at all.
What i mean however, is if they just dump it without force, the particles will stay where they are dumped, remember the ball?
If there is no force to affect the particles they will stay.

One explanation however would be that if the shuttle makes a course change, they might move into the particle cloud, but then you also have to take the effect on the particles from that movement.

Some of the sources of particles around the shuttle is unavoidable, i am not arguing that, untill the next thruster fires up.

What is my argument however is, if something is pushed away from the shuttle, it will continue on that trajectory untill something changes it.
Now, if their system is made up from only a dumping, these kinds of debris we see on the sts-75 footage, should be in every shuttle mission, as in very normal, in every footage...
And as you are arguing for the camera part, it should then not matter what camera system they use either.

Consider that a little push on these particles, will change their trajectory significantly, like a fired thruster, or even the 'dumping' mechanism could give them the momentum to change it.


EDIT: to add.
Just saw something that you wrote which i missed to respond to.

Thanks for explaining. So you assume the debris are always thrown out into space with significant speed relative to the shuttle. That would be the case with RCS thrusters, but not with other sources of debris: leaks, dumps, etc.

If the debris are 'thrown' out from the shuttle their speed will not be relative to the shuttle speed.
If they are ejected from the shuttle, lets say in the opposite direction that the shuttle are travelling, the shuttle will obviously leave that behind alot faster.

So even though they use dump lines, they need force to move the debris from that dump line, or the debris will stay where it is.
Now about the leaks, is the leak like a tap water line? Or is it preasure behind the leak (most probable, other wise it will not leak)? You will still have momentum change.

two flash evaporators, a water spray boiler, and so forth. No surprise, then, that floating debris near the shuttle is a common sight.

A flash evaporator works on the preasure principle.
It is used to reject heat for the two freon coolant loops on the shuttle.

The water spray boiler is used to cool the radiator to remove heat generated by the Shuttle's auxiliary power unit and hydraulic systems.

Both of these systems and the usage of them is to cool something down.
Probably these processes leave a minum of waste in the system, probably because of the evaporation process involved.

Was in a hurry the first time...


[edit on 31-3-2008 by Balez]

The tether video is live, raw NASA feed. The orb shapes couldn't possibly move behind the distant tether (it was some 60-90 miles away when filmed). And the objects move in different directions--which lens distortions can't do--not as smoothly, regularly as the objects do. Rather than accept NASA's mendacious explanation, we may be seeing something that they simply can't explain, something beyond human, hence they deny that it even exists, in the first place.

Originally posted by cams

NASA: "Franklin, We see a long line, couple star like things and alot of things swimming in the foreground, can you describe what you are seeing?"

Astronaut: "Well the long line is the tether um and there is a little bit of debris that ah kind of flies with us - and it's illuminated by the sun...."

"kind of flies with us"

enough said IMO

Hmmm...okay. This is just dust. A lot of it and very close to the camera. That's why they are completely out of focus.

None of them change directions. When the shuttle fires its thrusters every one of them moves, or when the camera zooms in they "move".

This is very simple. And yes, they will "fly" with the shuttle untill the shuttle accelerates away. This is space remember. There are no anomalies, that is what dust in space looks like.

The "arcing" is the camera lens. In the wide shots you can clearly see that the dust isn't changing directions, its just flying straight.

Same thing with "missile" video. Its just dust. A thruster fires -> dust moves rapidly. Every particle moved when the thruster was fired, one of them was closer to the camera and so it looked like it was faster than the others. Simple.

[edit on 31-3-2008 by maarek99]

Originally posted by zorgon
As to that other non working link... yeah its no longer available... (that happens a LOT lately when seeking answers... vanishing pages)

Yes, that is what happens when we do not pay our bills.

HOWEVER, Google cache sometimes yields gems

There is no need for a Google cache "gem", a text almost exactly like that is available on one of the links I posted (this one), and it's also on the NASA Technical Reports Server, on a report called "The first mission of the Tethered Satellite System".

Apparently they used the same camera (and the same text ) on both missions, TSS1 and TSS1-R.

The only doubt I have is if that was the camera used to make this video.

reply to post by maarek99

None of them change directions. When the shuttle fires its thrusters every one of them moves, or when the camera zooms in they "move".

Well that statement is not true, really, take a look at this:


You can see one of the objects travell path...

You can even see a thruster fire, these dust thingys look to be unaffected by that thrust, for being close to the camera that does not seem to be right....

This is very simple. And yes, they will "fly" with the shuttle untill the shuttle accelerates away. This is space remember. There are no anomalies, that is what dust in space looks like.

Thanks for saying that this is very simple! That is only like... 14 pages too late though.

Yes dust/ice/debris/birds, whatever they are, ofcourse they will travell with the shuttle.
The problem, as i see it, how would this dust/ice/debris put itself as a cloud around the shuttle? Where does it come from? The shuttle waste system?
If it is from the waste system, it should have been pushed away by the force of the ejection of the system, now i dont see how these things could have changed their trajectory to follow the shuttle after that, and ontop of that, they would have to increase their speed to over take the shuttle, and place themself as a cloud around the shuttle....
The shuttle speed is around 4,1 miles, per second.

Good question ArMaP.

I've begun to pour through the 'First Mission of the Tethered Satellite System' pdf file.

So far (slightly embarrased) I've only gotten through page 7.
Even still, I've noticed 4 clips that I wanted to make sure made it into this thread. I know that I may be a freak about data, but I just feel that everyone reading should have a solid understanding of what this mission was all about, and what hardware was involved.

So here goes, please bear with me as I may not understand all of this correctly. I'm hoping anyone who knows more will add to these comments.

Clip 1:

We learn 2 things from this section of text.
1) The tether is electrically charged, this is inherent in it's design
2) The tether is affected by Earth's gravity, this is inherent in it's design and mission plan, to be actively deployed at a low Earth Orbit where the gravity of the Earth will still effect the tether.

Clip 2:

Here are some of the interesting parts of this clip, in my view:
1) The tether is designed to move (with the shuttle and orbiter at either end) at approximately 8 kilometers per second.
2) The tether is approximately 20 kilometers long.

Clip 3:

In this clip of text we learn several more things about this experiment:
1) The tether is designed to drive electricity, and to generate high voltages
2) The voltages are on the order of 5 Kilovolts
3) The tether has something called a 'plasma sheath' - I'm not clear on what this is, but one of the mission objectives is to be able to control both the satellite potential (I think this applies to movement) and it's 'plasma sheath'
4) The tether is intended to produce electrostatic (not in motion) and electromagnetic (kinetic) waves

Clip 4:

The only reason I posted this clip, was to specify this mission's objective (this being for the first tether mission, not STS-75), and to clarify the fact that the Tether was designed to work as a part of a system, involving both the Shuttle and an Orbiter.

Okay, I know I haven't gotten very far yet, but I felt that these things needed to be pointed out. It would be great to acquire the specific mission plan and spec sheets for the mission in question. That being said, this data helps tremendously, to narrow down our missing variables.

-WFA

Simplified...

Take a copper wire... drag it at 17,500 mph through a magnetic field you generate electricity

An electrodynamic tether is essentially a long conducting wire extended from a spacecraft. The gravity gradient field (also known as the "tidal force") will tend to orient the tether in a vertical position. If the tether is orbiting around the Earth, it will be crossing the Earth's magnetic field lines at orbital velocity (7-8 km/s!). The motion of the conductor across the magnetic field induces a voltage along the length of the tether. This voltage can be up to several hundred volts per kilometer.

If you use it as a drag.. it will 'slow' your space craft or lower the orbit...

In an "electrodynamic tether drag" system, such as the Terminator Tether, the tether can be used to reduce the orbit of the spacecraft to which it is attached. If the system has a means for collecting electrons from the ionospheric plasma at one end of the tether and expelling them back into the plasma at the other end of the tether, the voltage can drive a current along the tether. This current will, in turn, interact with the Earth's magnetic field to cause a Lorentz JXB force which will oppose the motion of the tether and whatever it is attached to. This "electrodynamic drag force" will decrease the orbit of the tether and its host spacecraft. Essentially, the tether converts the orbital energy of the host spacecraft into electrical power, which is dissipated as ohmic heating in the tether.

www.thelivingmoon.com...

If you collect the electricity generated you can use it as a replacement for fuel as the tether can BOOST your orbit, reducing the need to ship up expensive fuel to keep your space station afloat

In a "electrodynamic propulsion" system, the tether can be used to boost the orbit of the spacecraft. If a power supply is added to the tether system and used to drive current in the direction opposite to that which it normally wants to flow, the tether can "push" against the Earth's magnetic field to raise the spacecraft's orbit. The major advantage of this technique compared to other space propulsion systems is that it doesn't require any propellant. It uses the Earth's magnetic field as its "reaction mass." By eliminating the need to launch large amounts of propellant into orbit, electrodynamic tethers can greatly reduce the cost of in space propulsion.

www.thelivingmoon.com...

If you need one for YOUR spaceship, these guys will build you oneSource of above clips

An electrodynamic tether is a long wire orbiting in the Earth’s magnetic field that uses the electric field generated by its motion, the so-called lvrrr•×B theof field (where tetherlength theis l and field, magnetic theis velocity, theis vrrrBor structure), to produce power or propulsion. This concept was proved on orbit by the PMG experiment, where both modes of operation were produced by emitting electrons (by means of plasma contactors) either at the top or bottom of a 500-meter tether to produce power (electron emission at the bottom) or propulsion (electron emission at the top). The maximum Brr×v on a structure in LEO is about 1/3 volt per meter.

SOURCE
Low Earth Orbit Spacecraft Charging Design Guidelines
NASA/TP—2003-212287

Kennedy Space Center News Release 5-96

EARLY FINDINGS FROM TETHERED SATELLITE MISSION
POINT TO REVAMPING OF SPACE PHYSICS THEORIES

RELEASE: 96-43

Numerous space physics and plasma theories are being revised or overturned by data gathered during the Tethered Satellite System Reflight (TSS-1R) experiments on Space Shuttle Columbia’s STS-75 mission last March.

Models, accepted by scientists for more than 30 years, are incorrect and must be rewritten. This assessment follows analysis by a joint U.S.-Italian Tethered Satellite investigating team of the information gathered during the mission.

www.msfc.nasa.gov...

TETHERED SATELLITE INVESTIGATION REPORT IS RELEASED

Italian Space Agency (ASI)

Excerpt
NASA and the Italian Space Agency today released the report of the investigative board appointed to determine factors which resulted in the Feb. 25 tether break and loss of the Tethered Satellite during the STS-75 Space Shuttle mission.

Findings of the board, included in a 358-page document, identified primary causes which accounted for the tether break during deployment of the Tethered Satellite.

The tether failed as a result of arcing and burning of the tether, leading to a tensile failure after a significant portion of the tether had burned away," the report concludes. The arcing occurred because either external foreign object penetration (but not orbital debris or micrometeoroids) or a defect in the tether caused a breach in the layer of insulation surrounding the tether conductor. The insulation breach provided a path for the current to jump, or arc, from the copper wire in the tether to a nearby electrical ground...

Excerpt

The tether was designed to carry up to 15,000 volts DC and handle tensile forces of up to 400 pounds (1780 newtons). It used super-strong strands of Kevlar as a strength-providing member, wound around the copper and insulation. However, postflight inspection of the tether end which remained aboard Columbia showed it to be charred. The board concluded that after arcing had burned through most of the Kevlar, the few remaining strands were not enough to withstand forces being exerted by satellite deployment...

findarticles.com...

Plasma Arcing example ESA satellite solar array