My theory on shuttle illumination late in dark ascent.
Pat Flannery wrote:
I'm sure Rocketcam will have it up in a few days; The effect was
noticeable for around 15 seconds prior to MECO and was really something
to see, as were the RCS firings, and APU exhaust.
The glow over the orbiter's wing leading edges at ET separation sure
looked to me like some sort of plasma event due to atomic oxygen at that
altitude.
Whatever it was, it knocked your socks off . =-O
Pat
It was definitely a cool video. Makes ya wish NASA did this or had this
capability on every mission from STS-1 on up. Crying shame it took the
loss of an orbiter and her crew to give us these vids.
Gene
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