Technicians at Space Imaging Incorporated directed a satellite
to take pictures of the debris for NASA within an hour after the
shuttle disintegrated Saturday morning.
Space Imaging's 16-hundred-pound Ikonos satellite captured the images over Texas, then traveled under the
South Pole.
Ikonos moved up the dark side of the Earth and then
transferred the data to a facility in Kiruna, Sweden.
A high-speed electronic link transmitted the images to Thornton.
Workers translated the images from binary code to usable,
map-accurate pictures. Space Imaging then shipped the pictures to
NASA electronically.
