This transcript actually talks about booster, debris and the bogey, which is referred to as "actual sighting"
The wording gives the impression that the crew were told they might have to keep an eye out for "actual sighting" of something specific.
Would be interesting to know if subsequent missions reported similar sights (would confirm orbital debris theory) or whether subsequent sightings of orbital debris was fundamentally different than this one.
I remember seeing camera images aftward-looking from second stages and so forth, and the amount of particulate debris from a staging event was surprising. Supposedly, the surveillance radars track objects with a radar cross-section equivalent to a golf ball. The catalog is huge. I can't imagine the headache in keeping it up to date (they compute and record the orbital ephemeris for each object).
This transcript actually talks about booster, debris and the bogey, which is referred to as "actual sighting"
The wording gives the impression that the crew were told they might have to keep an eye out for "actual sighting" of something specific.
Would be interesting to know if subsequent missions reported similar sights (would confirm orbital debris theory) or whether subsequent sightings of orbital debris was fundamentally different than this one.
I remember seeing camera images aftward-looking from second stages and so forth, and the amount of particulate debris from a staging event was surprising. Supposedly, the surveillance radars track objects with a radar cross-section equivalent to a golf ball. The catalog is huge. I can't imagine the headache in keeping it up to date (they compute and record the orbital ephemeris for each object).