Documents / Official release
This NASA file of astronaut scientific debriefing papers from 1962 collects internal Office of Space Sciences material on the science observations made on early Mercury flights. A February 1962 memo from Maurice Dubin asks for more detail on John Glenn's report of luminous particles and the atmospheric horizon layer. A draft memo concludes that the particles were tied to the spacecraft and were not extraterrestrial. The file also holds a Los Alamos letter that attributes the high haze layer to nitrogen peroxide, and notes on Carpenter's airglow observations.
From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 This file contains memoranda, correspondence, reports, and other materials relating to contemporary scientific interest in investigating the nature of luminous phenomena reported by astronauts John Glenn and Walter Schirra during spaceflight. This collection includes transcripts from NASA interviews and debriefings with both astronauts regarding those observations. It also contains details relating to scientific observations of atmospheric phenomena, including brief descriptions of luminous particles, experiences while aboard spacecraft, and circa 1955 theoretical analysis of meteoric particles entering the atmosphere. Pages 34-35, 55-56, 57-63, 64-113, and 122-127 feature content relevant to the PURSUE initiative.
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t 4. By noting the time when Phecda was halfway f rom the lumi nous oand to the horizon. 5. By noting the fact that when the cross of the reti cle ,th(.. 'A 1,( ·1 r.~ i) ~ /).\ \>.-.( ! i s set diagonally,~ just covers the distance from the band to the hori zon. By method 3, we make use of the time of passage through the middle J of the layer. This point is marked by a re f erence to a mark on the telemeteri ng. enl:y: ee found on ~he gr ottae. etatiea ta:r;,e s, .:i. ~ '-"'' .;i.--,c.:h •" .,.;. ~1 ).."f' cn \:!r . L\ t r f e ,, 4er v a:'.. efl 1:,Pe Mt yet svail:a:til.e, ~ l,y careful timing of the capsule t ape'/\it ,,. appear s to have been very close to a 4h "1,m j.9s, capsule elapsed time, i.e., 16h5cPl/5s. UT. For this instant the capsule coordinates as i nterpola ted from the Woomera tra cking data, were - longi tude - 127° 40:0 latitude = -18° 49:8 he i ght = 226 kilometers At thi s moment, the l i ne of sight to ( Ursae Majoris was t angent to t he l ayer of maxi mum thi ckness of 5577. The angular zen i th distance oft U Ma a t t hi s time was found to be 101°42 1 • A line of this zeni th dista nce i s t a ngent t o a spherical shell of the proper radius whi ch i s 137 ki lometers below the capsule or 89 ki lometers above sea level. Ac cordingly, thi s observat i on should be i nterpreted a s i ndicating that the densest part of the 5577 l aye r i s at a he ight of 89 ki lometers, which is in good a greement with rocket mea sures. The lower limit of the visible light appeared to be near 78 ki lometers ; rt / ht 5/derrmtat1f . i3/no. t pnie1d aysif1fi,/ bt,j~i n1 a 1/1111io/u~ / hell /1 s /ex-p/c~ to/dim/nisVgragla11r d~wara i/a6arentlbri~~e9i , e4en} r /4 is. , faf~8}1/ _v}r/ ¢1/1• . #J.JJiJlliJJJlfl:!J°Y:!iJJJ,~v.~ir The f i lter observati on on the airglow was made at 17h 0~ 6s, UT.
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 216 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.