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.
