Space Shuttle Columbia During Reentry over Austin, TX, Near the End of STS-94

Video footage of Space Shuttle Columbia during reentry over northern Austin, TX as it approached Kennedy Space Center in the morning of July 17, 1997, near the end of mission STS-94.

Recorded on a VHS-C camera in a park near Anderson Mill Road & Parmer Lane. I apologize for the video dropouts; that same camera "ate" my footage and damaged the tape a few years later [thus illustrating why I was so eager to dump the footage to DVD MPEG2 and DiVX in 2006].

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 despite the modest amount of background noise.

More details on this mission: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-94

I have footage of Space Shuttle Discovery on reentry over Austin, TX, at the end of STS-82 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lAtZ9DbcKU

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Space Shuttle
• Columbia
• Austin
• TX
• reentry
• STS-94
• MSL