Fact1: unmanned Sun Probe locates planet lying on same orbital path as Earth on opposite side of Sun, Fact2: Dr Kurt Hassler of European Space Exploration Council has been relaying spacecraft 's flight data to rival power in East, Fact3: Security Chief Mark Neuman catches scientist in after tracing transmissions to Hassler 's laboratory act, Fact4: West be first to send mission to investigate planet, Fact5: Ross and Kane decide to make surface landing
Output: In 2069, the unmanned Sun Probe locates a planet lying on the same orbital path as Earth on the opposite side of the Sun. Dr Kurt Hassler Herbert Lom of the European Space Exploration Council EUROSEC has been relaying the spacecrafts flight data to a rival power in the East; after tracing the transmissions to Hasslers laboratory, Security Chief Mark Neuman George Sewell catches the scientist in the act and kills him. EUROSEC director Jason Webb Patrick Wymark convinces NASA representative David Poulson Ed Bishop that the West must be the first to send a mission to investigate the planet. With EUROSEC member states France and Germany unwilling to provide financial support, Webb obtains funding from NASA; American astronaut Colonel Glenn Ross Roy Thinnes and British astrophysicist Dr John Kane Ian Hendry, the head of the Sun Probe project, are assigned to the mission. Launched from the EUROSEC Space Centre in Portugal in the spacecraft Phoenix, Ross and Kane spend the first half of their sixweek round trip in stasis. Three weeks after launch, the astronauts are revived in the planets orbit. Scans for the existence of extraterrestrial life are inconclusive, and Ross and Kane decide to make a surface landing. As the astronauts descend, an electrical storm damages their Dove lander shuttle, which crashes in a mountainous region near Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. When an airsea rescue unit returns Ross and Kane, the latter critically injured, to the Space Centre, it appears that the Phoenix mission has returned to Earth. Neuman and EUROSEC official Lise Hartman Loni von Friedl interrogate Ross, who denies that he aborted the mission. Shortly after, Kane dies from his injuries. Eventually, Ross concludes that he is not on Earth, but is on the unknown planet – a CounterEarth that is a mirror image of his. Signs of this reversal include a clock whose hands move anticlockwise, a tape decks reels that turn clockwise and an oscilloscope that scans from right to left. Many at EUROSEC, including Rosss wife, Sharon Lynn Loring, are baffled by the astronauts claims that all aspects of life on the planet are reversed. However, Webbs view starts to change when Ross demonstrates the ability to read aloud from a sign, without hesitation, when it is reflected in a mirror; Webb is later convinced of the truth when Kanes postmortem examination reveals that his internal organs are positioned on the wrong side of his body. Ross conjectures that the two Earths lie parallel, inferring that his counterpart from this world is experiencing similar events on the far side of the Sun. Webb suggests that Ross recover the flight recorder from Phoenix and return to his Earth. EUROSEC builds a replacement for Dove designed to be compatible with the reversed technologies of Phoenix. Ross christens the new shuttle Doppelganger, a German word denoting a duplicate of a person or object. Lifting off and entering orbit, Ross docks with Phoenix. However, a wrong guess about CounterEarth electrical polarity during its construction causes a catastrophic malfunction that disables the Doppelganger. The shuttle detaches from Phoenix and falls through the atmosphere towards the Space Centre. EUROSEC is unable to repair the fault from the ground and Ross is unable to steer. The Doppelganger crashes into a parked spacecraft. Ross is incinerated in the collision and a chain reaction destroys much of the Space Centre, killing personnel and destroying all records of Rosss presence on the CounterEarth. Many years later, an embittered and wheelchairbound Jason Webb, long since dismissed from EUROSEC, has been admitted to a nursing home. In his dementia, he sees his reflection in a mirror placed in front of a window. Rushing towards his reflected image, Webb crashes through the mirror and dies.