She Made It Home Safely

[raincry]

'Discovery is home'

Shuttle completes first mission since loss of Columbia

By Thom Patterson

CNN

The space shuttle Discovery touched down Tuesday morning, completing NASA's first shuttle mission since Columbia broke apart during re-entry in February 2003.

The shuttled landed at 5:11 a.m. PT at NASA's secondary landing site at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

"Congratulations on a truly spectacular test flight" mission control radioed the crew. "Welcome home friends."

"We're happy to be back and we congratulate the whole team for a job well done," said Commander Eileen Collins.

It was the 50th shuttle landing at Edwards.

Earlier Tuesday NASA waved off its two opportunities for Discovery to land at its primary site at Kennedy Space Center because of stormy weather off the Florida coast.

Weather conditions at Edwards included clear skies and light winds, "excellent conditions for a space shuttle landing," NASA said.

"How do you feel about a beautiful clear night with a breeze down the runway in the high desert of California?" mission control radioed Collins.

"We are ready for whatever we need to do," Collins said.

Discovery's path to Edwards began with the spacecraft firing its engines over the Indian Ocean to slow it enough to re-enter Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific.

"Discovery is on its way back to Earth," NASA spokesman James Hartsfield said.

Shuttle pilot James Kelly steered Discovery on a trajectory leading it near Los Angeles and Oxnard, California, with touch down at Edwards' Runway 22.

NASA officials vowed to land the orbiter Tuesday at one of three locations after weather conditions forced them to scrub the shuttle's scheduled return a day earlier. The Kennedy Space Center in Florida was NASA's first choice. Edwards their second and White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico their third.

Officials would have preferred to land at Kennedy Space Center to avoid the cost and inconvenience of flying the shuttle back to its launch site from the alternative landing strips.

Mission STS-114 largely was designed to improve safety on future shuttle journeys, although the program has been suspended while NASA investigates its failure to solve the problem of foam falling from the shuttle's external liquid fuel tank during launch.

Video from the July 26 launch showed debris falling from the fuel tank, but NASA said it did not appear to have struck the orbiter.

Once in space, Discovery's crew used cameras to scrutinize the craft's exterior for possible damage that might pose a threat during re-entry.

The shuttle spent most of the mission docked to the international space station, delivering much-needed supplies and performing maintenance on the outpost.

Astronaut Steve Robinson performed an unprecedented shuttle repair mission by plucking two pieces of filler material protruding between tiles on Discovery's underside. NASA wanted them removed to ensure they wouldn't overheat, damaging Discovery's belly during re-entry.

[SlickSlider]

[funketeer]

[Orisha]

YAY! I was worried about them, considering last time, and all.

[stogiey2k2]

good post!

[raincry]

it'll cost them approx one million dollars to fly it back to kennedy space center....that's a lot of change but nasa has no problems paying that for the safe return of their astronauts.....

[stogiey2k2]

it'll cost them approx one million dollars to fly it back to kennedy space center....that's a lot of change but nasa has no problems paying that for the safe return of their astronauts.....

I'm sure in about 10-15 years they'll freakin have a city built up there...

[digitalphoenix]

Glad to hear. Man, these people are making HISTORY, you hear me?

Of course you cant...this is a message board!

But still...I really am happy they are home.

We've had enuff disasters in the world.

[jamesstratus]

Glad to know that the crew in home safe, but this underscores one of the main problems with the Shuttle. It can easily stand the 18,000 miles per hour it takes to break the earths gravity to get in to orbit, but it can't land when it is raining.

[funketeer]

yes, they made it back...but in the back of everyone's mind, disaster was still a possibility...the shuttle is an amazing machine but not a flawless one, it's still amazing to me that it makes it back into the earth's athmosphere without blowing up...I'd think the materialss would stand only one of those rides, the question I put forward is...how many flights can a shuttle take? under those conditions, there's got be a limit of heat it can withstand, seriously...I mean, molecular expansion and all that jazz, how many flighhts does it take to makke a shuttle blow up? noone knows, space exploration is an exploration on itself, as we've come to learn...what i wouldn't give to take a look at planet earth from the window of one of those babies, every astronaut that's asked what they like most from space flight answers the same...looking at earth floating down below...how amazing it must be...

[mdamon7278]

Cheers to them

-red bull

[philippio]

"Houston, we have a problem" always makes my fingers tingle.