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Washington DC

WHEN the space shuttle Columbia, now in orbit, freefalls towards Earth
for its landing in Florida on 6 July, a TV camera aimed through its windscreen
will transmit live to the online world what the pilot is seeing.

The live coverage will be broadcast on NASA’s World Wide Web site http://
shuttle.nasa.gov/sts-78/video and on the agency’s satellite TV network. It will
start as Columbia crosses Texas, and emerges from the fiery cloud of ionised
particles that surrounds any spacecraft during re-entry into the atmosphere.

At first, NASA will broadcast from a miniaturised camera held by one of the
astronauts that will show the interior of the spacecraft. But about five minutes
before Columbia reaches the Kennedy Space Center, NASA will start broadcasting
from another minicamera. This will provide a pilot’s eye view of the space
shuttle’s approach and landing.

The windscreen-mounted camera is not connected to a video recorder, so it
will not deliver any footage of the spacecraft’s dramatic re-entry—when
communications with ground control are blocked. But NASA says that the hand-held
camera, which will be linked to a recorder, may be pointed out of a window
during re-entry. These images, showing the view from inside the fireball that
will engulf the craft, may be broadcast at a later date.