NASA has analyzed the incident that occurred on Friday when the Discovery astronauts reported that an object has floated out from the ship’s cargo bay.

The incident occurred after the crew has performed a before-landing test of the shuttle steering jets. Cmdr. Mark E. Kelly has contacted the Mission Control and announced that the crew has also identified a “bump” on the left side trailing edge of Discovery's rudder.

However, the US space agency has concluded that the rectangular object, which has a size of 1 to 1 1/2 feet, seems to be one of three metal clips around thermal insulation.

As about the protuberance that was described as a bump, NASA concluded that is just an optical illusion cause by the rudder's angle and the lighting.

The NASA officials decided that the missing clip it won’t be a problem for the landing and the Mission Management Team has cleared the shuttle for entry. Saturday's deorbit burn is planned for 10:10 a.m. EDT, followed by landing at 11:15 a.m.

The primary landing site for Discovery is the KSC’s Shuttle Landing Facility. Alternate landing sites that could be used if needed because of weather conditions or systems failures are at Edwards Air Fore Base, Calif., and White Sands Space Harbor, N.M.

Discovery is on its way home after a 12-days mission, during which the seven astronauts delivered the second component of the Japanese lab Kibo and performed various tasks at the International Space Station.

Assembly of the Kibo pressurized facilities was completed during the STS-124 mission. In turn, the Kibo Exposed Facility (EF) and the Experiment Logistics Module-Exposed Section (ELM-ES) are scheduled to be launched on the STS-127 (2J/A) mission.

By the summer of 2009, Japan’s unmanned cargo transfer spacecraft, the HTV, will initiate its operations. The HTV will be launched aboard the H-IIB launch vehicle from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan, and begin transferring supplies, payloads and cargo, both pressurized and unpressurized, to the station.

The Discovery shuttle is bringing back home Flight Engineer Garrett Reisman, who was replaced by Flight Engineer Greg Chamitoff.

Selected by NASA as a Mission Specialist in June 1998, Garett Reisman reported for training in August 1998. After completing this training, Dr. Reisman was assigned to the Astronaut Office Robotics Branch where he worked primarily on the Space Station robotic arm.

In October 2001, Dr. Reisman was assigned to the Astronaut Office Advanced Vehicles Branch where he worked on the displays and checklists to be used in the next generation Space Shuttle cockpit.

In June 2003, Dr. Reisman was a crewmember on NEEMO V, living on the bottom of the sea in the Aquarius habitat for two weeks.

Reisman served as a member of both the Expedition-16 and the Expedition-17 crew aboard the International Space Station.