Launch on Need by Daniel Guiteras (small books to read txt) 📗

“Let me explain how this is going to work,” Lieutenant Walker began, carefully choosing his words and divulging the least amount possible about the operation.

Chapter 55

Somewhere In Space

THE TWO ORBITERS were now less than 20 miles apart. At an altitude of 237 miles above Earth, cSATCV604—or “Bugeye,” as the Space Control specialists at Cheyenne Mountain liked to refer to it—fired its thrusters briefly in response to targeting inputs it received for final course correction. The top-secret satellite was in a low Earth orbit, and over the past few days had been moved gradually over to the identical orbital path Atlantis was flying.

Bugeye was now positioned overhead of Atlantis and her crew, pacing its target perfectly at a velocity of 17,000 miles per hour, and snapping reconnaissance photos from a distance of less than 55 miles.

Chapter 56

Johnson Space Center, Houston

“THE FIRST IMAGE is downloading now, twenty percent complete,” Walker said without looking at Warner. Warner did not reply, but shifted his weight in his chair, anticipating, anxious to move the rescue mission along. He watched the laptop monitor for signs of progress.

“Now, here’s how it’s going to work,” Walker said, repeating his previous instructions, finally looking at Warner. “The image will appear on my monitor first and then I will send it to your laptop. I’m not certain of the number of images we will receive in total, but I expect we’ll have over fifty in a matter of minutes. The images will appear first as thumbnails at the bottom of your screen. You may expand or reduce each image using the laptop’s track pad. Do you have any questions?”

Warner shook his head no.

“You can pick up your phone handset now and talk to Mr. Brown. Your line is secure,” Walker said.

Warner grabbed the handset and said hello to confirm the connection. As he did, he thought he saw Lieutenant Walker place an earpiece in each ear. He immediately surmised that each earpiece was connected to a different audio source. And he was right. Walker’s left ear was being fed an audio feed from his team at Cheyenne Mountain, the Space Control specialists who were running the imaging operation of Atlantis. In his right ear, Walker listened to Brown and Warner as their conversation emerged from the digital voice recorder device located inside his case.

The progress bar on Walker’s computer showed 100 percent for the first file. Another progress bar for the second image showed 38 percent complete. Two more images began downloading.

“Okay, I’m sending the first image over now,” Walker said, “and they’ll keep coming from here on out. Each new image will show as a thumbnail at the bottom of your screen. Just click on any thumbnail to view the image at full size.”

The first ultra-high-resolution image flashed onto the screen all at once. It wasn’t rendered in the familiar, agonizingly slow, one-band-at-a-time screen redraws Warner had experienced when viewing the NASA photo guy’s hi-res images. Warner had never seen a high-resolution image file draw so fast on any computer, especially one at this resolution. Warner knew the files were huge.

“Oh my God,” Warner exclaimed into the phone.

Brown was going out of his mind. “What, what is it, what do you see?”

“Oh, sorry, Ken, I just can’t believe the picture quality.”

“Yes, but do you see any damage?”

The image in front of Warner was of amazing detail. Bugeye didn’t have to look all the way down to Earth, down through Earth’s atmosphere, through smog, clouds and haze, as reconnaissance satellites do when imaging Earth-based targets. Instead, the classified satellite was looking down through pristine airspace, just 55 miles below to Atlantis. Warner could not remember ever seeing pictures of this clarity. Even pictures he’d seen taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station of approaching or departing orbiters—those images had never been this clear.

Warner had inserted specific coordinates into the approach path Atlantis would take to rendezvous with Columbia, coordinates given to him by Commander Scheckter. These coordinates would position Atlantis at the perfect pitch for Bugeye to get a detailed look at Atlantis’s Thermal Protection System (TPS), including the Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC) panels along the wing’s leading-edge.

“Okay, Ken, the first shot shows no gross damage to either wing’s leading edge,” Warner said with a certain note of optimism, as if all he had to do was confirm two wings were still attached to Atlantis’s fuselage and his job would be complete.

“Allan, you’re going to need to look for a close-up of each wing, preferably close enough to see RCC panel and tile profiles, but far enough back so you can reference which wing you’re looking at. We have to make sure we clear both wings. I don’t want to find out while Atlantis is on her way home that you’ve given the green light for reentry after having looked at images from only one wing.”

“Got it,” Warner said, already peering closely at other images as if he’d been infused with a new sense of purpose. “I’ve got at least twenty images to look through. Give me a second here.”

“Over twenty already?” Brown asked, trying to imagine the hardware at work.

“This is one serious data pipeline,” Warner said, becoming aware again that he wasn’t alone in the room. He looked up at the lieutenant, who had already sent him a stern look.

Warner turned his attention back to the laptop computer. “This looks like a good one,” he said, double-clicking a thumbnail of what looked like a wing close-up. The image opened immediately. “I’m not sure what is more amazing here, the image clarity or how fast the images open. Ken, you’re going to have to talk to someone about getting better hardware.”

“We’ll have to see about that when this is all over.”

“Okay, this image shows a close-up,”