Area 51: The Mission-3 Read Online Free PDF Page A

of the few left at JPL and NASA from the early, exciting days of the space program. He wasn't a specialist, but a jack-of-all-trades. He had been mission head for all Mars launches, a job that had thrust him into the spotlight when the Airlia base on Mars had been uncovered in the Cydonia region.
    Kincaid checked his watch. He'd been staring at the computer for the past three hours. He decided he'd give it another half hour—then he froze as a small red dot began flashing on the screen.

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    Kincaid used the mouse to put the point over the red dot and he clicked.
    A code came up on the screen:

    TL-SAT-9-3//MISSI0N-CIVIL//ARIANE//KOUROU

    The code told Kincaid several things: First that it was a man-made object—a satellite. Second that it was a contracted, privately financed, civilian project. Third, that it had been launched by the European Space Consortium, Ariane, from their launch site at Kourou in French Guiana. Kincaid searched deeper into the database.
    He was surprised to discover that the satellite had been launched only two days before. And it was currently highlighted on the DSP because its orbit was decaying, a further surprise. No one put a satellite up for only two days unless they had a very specific mission for it, or something had gone wrong and the decay was the result of a mishap.
    Kincaid checked the decay as DSP continually updated his screen. TL-SAT-9-3
    was coming down into the Earth's atmosphere in eight minutes. Kincaid stared at the red dot for a few seconds, then brought up a display underneath that showed its position relevant to the Earth below it. The satellite was currently passing over the eastern Pacific, heading toward South America.
    Kincaid picked up a secure phone and called Space Command, asking for the officer in charge.
    "Colonel Willis." The voice on the other end was flat, a result of the phone's scrambler.

    "Colonel, this is Larry Kincaid from JPL. I'm currently following the data on a satellite you have decaying, TL-SAT-9-3. Do you a projected impact point?"

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    "Wait one," Willis said. "I have my people plotting it."
    Kincaid knew that the staff at Space Command delineated four categories of objects in space. The first was a known object in stable orbit, such as a satellite or some of the debris from previous space missions. Each of those had a special code assigned to it and the data was stored in the computer at Cheyenne Mountain. There were presently more than 8,500 catalogued items orbiting the planet that Space Command tracked.
    The second category was a known object whose orbit changed, such as when a country or corporation decided to reposition one of its satellites. The third was a known object whose orbit decayed, which was what Kincaid was looking at.
    When that happened Space Command put a TIP—tracking and impact prediction—team on the job to figure out where it would come down. TIP teams had been instituted as a result of the publicity after Skylab came down years before. The fourth category was an object that has just been launched and had yet to be assigned a code.
    "Why's it deteriorating so fast?" Kincaid asked.
    "It must have been planned to be brought down now," Willis said.
    "For recovery?"
    "Why else would someone bring a satellite down?" Willis asked, to Kincaid's irritation. Before he could retort, Willis had the information he'd originally asked for.
    "She's coming down in western Brazil. We'll be able to narrow the location once it's down, but it's still under some flight control and the descent is being adjusted."
    Kincaid watched as the red dot crossed South America. It suddenly disappeared.
    "She's down," Willis said needlessly.

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    "At least it didn't strike a city," Willis said.
    "It probably hit jungle," Kincaid said, noting the location where the dot had disappeared, the western edge of the Amazon rain forest. "Can you backtrack the satellite's orbit?" he asked. "I want to know if it passed close by either the mothership's orbit or the