Reentry Movie/Photo Sequence of
Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-103)
December 27, 1999

The images below were recorded during the reentry of Shuttle Discovery (STS-103) with a Sony DCRTRV103 digital camcorder. The imagery was acquired near Harleton Texas (32.65N -94.46W or about 95 miles east of Dallas) on 27 December 1999.

The time in the images is Eastern Standard Time whereas the location was one hour earlier (Central Standard Time). The camcorder clock was later found to be 42 seconds ahead of UTC.

The general sequence of views begins in the southwestern sky, culminates in the southern sky, and ends in the southeastern sky. The sky was not quite evening civil twilight at the time of filming. Fortunately there had been a waive-off of the first landing attempt due to higher than permitted crosswinds at KSC. This allowed the reentry to be delayed 90 minutes so that a larger portion of the reentry path occurred in darkness.

The source for the images on this page came the Discovery STS-103 reentry mpeg movie. The mpeg movie is quite large (12Mbytes) but I think you will enjoy it. It gives a much more real representation of the speed of the Shuttle. I apologize for the shakey camera operation, it is difficult to not be excited when watching a Shuttle reentry. The downfall of filming is that the camera operator often misses the full visual effect of the event. Of course, we forget things eventually so in the end analysis it seems the movie is really the best of all worlds.

The series of numbers below each image are the corrected UTC time, the estimated magnification of the camcorder and the number of seconds since the first photo acquisition. For instance 23:44:40_15x_0 refers to UTC time of 11:44:40 (p.m.), a telephoto magnification estimated as 15x, and the number of seconds (0 sec) since the first acquired image.

Concerning downloading, if your screen is setup for less than 800x600 resolution, the text descriptors and the images will not line up properly. Also, it appears to take ~1hr 10 minutes to download the 12Mbyte mpeg with a 28.8Kbit connection. All the movies/photos on this page are Copyright 1999 James E. Byrd. All rights reserved.

 ^ 23:44:50_15x_0s                            ^ 23:44:54_15x_4s
 ^ First acquisition of Discovery             ^ Approaching rapidly and becoming brighter

 ^ 23:45:13_1x_23s                            ^ 23:45:17_1x_27s
 ^ View toward south southwest                ^ Pre-culmination (tangent passage)

 ^ 23:45:21_1x_31s                            ^ 23:45:25_1x_35s
 ^ Post-culmination                           ^ Continuing rapid transit
 ^ Culmination estimated at 23:45:19

 ^ 23:45:29_1x_39s                            ^ 23:45:34_1x_44s
 ^ Entering southeast sky                     ^ Estimated brightest magnitude

 ^ 23:45:38_1x_48s                            ^ 23:45:41_10x_51s
 ^ Beginning to dim                           ^ Zooming in (the zig-zags are image imperfections)

 ^ 23:45:48_20x_58s                            ^ 23:45:50_20x_60s
 ^ Full zoom                                   ^ Continued full zoom

 ^ 23:45:56_1x_66s                            ^ 23:46:01_4x_71s
 ^ Descending slowly                          ^ Becoming more faint

 ^ 23:46:10_6x_80s                            ^ 23:46:20_10x_90s
 ^ Descending more slowly                     ^ Faint

 ^ 23:46:38_15x_108s                          ^ 23:46:42_20x_112s
 ^ Fainter                                    ^ Last image

The nosewheel touchdown for Shuttle Discovery occurred at 7:01:43 p.m. EST (00:01:43 UTC). This means that from the last image, Shuttle Discovery was aloft another 14 minutes and 52 seconds before landing in east central Florida at the Kennedy Space Center. The orbit for this mission (servicing the Hubble Space Telescope) was a 28 degree inclination with the reentry on the descending node (northwest to southeast). For future reference, the shuttle will generally transit eastern Texas a little more that 16 minutes before the advertised landing time.

Thanks for coming along "for the ride". I hope you enjoyed this sequence of photos captured from the mpeg video. It was my second opportunity to observe a shuttle reentry. The first time (July 28, 1999) was spectacular enough to convice myself to purchase a good quality imaging camera and accessories.

James E. Byrd - January 21, 2000.