The 15-day mission of Discovery has finished today after the space shuttle landed successfully at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

“Well hello there, it's nice to be back in Florida,” Discovery Commander Pam Melroy, who steered the craft to the runway, said over the radio after the safe landing.

The astronauts who just returned after more than two weeks in space looked over the outside of the spacecraft that carried them there and back.

Commander Pam Melroy and NASA astronauts George Zamka, Scott Parazynski, Doug Wheelock and Stephanie Wilson walked around beneath space shuttle Discovery shortly after landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson returned with the Discovery crew after almost five months living aboard the International Space Station, but did not take part in the walkaround. European Space Agency astronaut Paoli Nespoli also did not walk around the spacecraft. Melroy said both were taking part in extra medical evaluations but were feeling fine.

Melroy came away from the quick inspection impressed with how well the spacecraft held up through the mission.

“We could not have done this mission without Discovery neing as clean and beautiful as it was," she said at the runway. "I think the whole agency had to pull together for this particular mission. We saw a lot of very unusual things happen.”

NASA administrator Mike Griffin said the mission showed the agency “at its very best. It just does not get any better.”

Discovery crew successfully accomplished its main purpose, to deliver and attach the Harmony module, a new extension to the station’s interior and the existing U.S. laboratory, which will permit accommodation for another six people. The Italian-built Harmony will permit further expansion of the International Space Station. The next three shuttle flights will deliver Japanese and European science labs, which will be attached to Harmony.

Discovery astronauts installed it in a temporary location because their shuttle was blocking what is to be its permanent home. The ISS crew will now move the Harmony module to its permanent position to make way for further expansion of the station.

During the mission, in a procedure considered to be one of the most complicated in the history of the space station, Scott Parazynski has installed five special links to repair two rips in the solar panel, the oldest on the ISS. The panel was damaged while astronauts were trying to move and deploy it. To get Parazynski to the damaged solar array, a long boom was attached to the end of the shuttle's robotic arm. Parazynski was attached to the boom with a boot lock, and then maneuvered to the site, farther from the space station than is normal on spacewalks.

The solar panel was still generating electricity, so the spacewalk was conducted with insulated tools.

The repairs were needed to boost the space station's power supply, which must be increased to support more than the three-member ISS crew and to run the new European and Japanese modules.

NASA is already preparing for the next mission and the space Shuttle Atlantis was to be moved to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral on Saturday in preparation for its own 11-day mission to the ISS set to begin December 6.