Space Shuttle Discovery on Reentry Over Austin, TX, Near the End of STS-82

Recording of Space Shuttle Discovery on reentry over Austin, TX, USA, near the end of STS-82 in the early pre-dawn hours of February 21, 1997.

Footage was recorded on a VHS-C camcorder on the top floor of a parking garage near the intersection of 30th Street and the southbound frontage road of Interstate Highway IH-35.

Discovery appeared in the southern sky over the skyline of downtown Austin and disappeared over the eastern horizon within three minutes.

From a layman's standpoint, the shuttle itself looked like a yellow smudge, trailed by a small gap, with a much wider & longer cloud of white, ionized gases behind that. The camera was lacking in low light color performance so the footage above only gives a hint of what I saw.

I attempted to hear the double booms typical of a supersonic space shuttle passing overhead, but didn't hear any--the road noise from traffic on the nearby Interstate didn't help matters.

More mission details at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-82

I have footage of Space Shuttle Columbia on reentry over Austin, TX, during STS-94 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg9vwS1WNi4

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Space Shuttle Discovery
• STS-82
• Austin
• TX
• reentry
• Hubble Space Telescope
• HSM-2
• Hubble Service Mission 2

[lonestarshark1]

Very nice, I used to watch these in Dallas in the southwest sky any chance I got. Its too bad they don't take this re-entry trajectory anymore, my guess is because of Columbia. Anyway, this video will just get rarer with age.

[bnctoobe]

@lonestarshark1 I think the trend for no reentries over the SW US began with the increasing focus of shuttle missions to the ISS. The inclination of the ISS' orbit forced shuttle reentry paths to go over Central America [with a lot of them going over the Yucatan Peninsula] and the Gulf of Mexico. The loss of Columbia took place on one of the few shuttle missions over the last 10+ years that operated independent of the ISS.

[richieramone1]

incredible footage!

[0100110101001011]

very cool