CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The shuttle Discovery and its astronauts returned safely to Earth on Tuesday after making a rare flyover of America’s heartland to wrap up their 15-day, 6 million-mile journey to the International Space Station.

The touchdown was delayed by rain and fog that dissipated as the sun rose, allowing Mission Control to take advantage of the morning’s second landing opportunity.

Discovery swooped through a hazy sky before landing on the Kennedy Space Center runway. NASA briefly considered bringing the shuttle in to the opposite end of the strip because of puffy clouds, but the glare from the sun was too great and flight controllers stuck to the original plan.

In the end, commander Alan Poindexter made what appeared to be a smooth touchdown, a day late because of rain.

“Welcome home,” Mission Control’s Rick Sturckow said, radioing congratulations on the entire flight.

“It was a great mission. We enjoyed it,” Poindexter said. “And we’re glad that the International Space Station is stocked up again.”

NASA had promised a spectacular show, weather permitting, for early risers in Helena, Mont., and all the way along Discovery’s flight path through the Midwest and Southeast. With the space shuttle program winding down, there weren’t expected to be any more continental flyovers.

This was, in fact, Discovery’s next-to-last flight. Only one more mission remains for NASA’s oldest surviving shuttle. As soon as it’s removed from the runway, it will be prepped for the final shuttle flight, scheduled for September.

Discovery zoomed over the North Pacific on its way home before crossing into North America over Vancouver, British Columbia. Then it headed toward the southeast, flying over northeastern Washington, Helena, Mont.; Wyoming; southwestern Nebraska; northeastern Colorado; southwestern Kansas; Oklahoma; Arkansas; Mississippi; Alabama; Georgia and finally Florida east of Gainesville.

NASA had anticipated the sonic booms might be heard as far north as Kansas. There were no immediate reports.

Before the shuttle began its descent, Mission Control described to the astronauts the route they would be taking to Cape Canaveral. “Sounds like a great ground track,” Poindexter observed.

It was the first time since 2007 that a space shuttle descended over so much of the United States. NASA typically prefers bringing a shuttle home from the southwest, up over the South Pacific, Central America and the Gulf of Mexico. That way, there’s minimal flying over heavily populated areas. In 2003, space shuttle Columbia shattered over Texas during re-entry, but no one on the ground was injured by the falling wreckage.

NASA wanted to maximize the crew’s work time in orbit, while minimizing fatigue. That resulted in this North American crossing.

Before leaving the space station Saturday, Poindexter and his crew dropped off tons of supplies and equipment. The main delivery was a tank full of ammonia coolant, which took three spacewalks to hook up.

A nitrogen pressure valve refused to open after the tank was installed, and for a day, NASA considered sending the shuttle astronauts out on a fourth spacewalk to fix the problem. But engineers concluded it was not an emergency and that the space station crew or future shuttle fliers could deal with it.

History, meanwhile, was made with the presence of four women in space: three on the shuttle and one at the station.

Discovery returned with a couple tons of trash and discarded space station equipment. Most of that was jammed into a cargo carrier that rocketed away aboard the shuttle back on April 5. The carrier will be re-outfitted and fly back up on Discovery in September, and be installed permanently at the orbiting outpost.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (pictures): THEEPOCHTIMES

At 11:38 a.m. EST, on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Christa McAuliffe is on her way to becoming the first ordinary U.S. civilian to travel into space. McAuliffe, a 37-year-old high school social studies teacher from New Hampshire, won a competition that earned her a place among the seven-member crew of the Challenger. She underwent months of shuttle training but then, beginning January 23, was forced to wait six long days as the Challenger’s launch countdown was repeatedly delayed because of weather and technical problems. Finally, on January 28, the shuttle lifted off.

Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds on the ground, including Christa’s family, stared in disbelief as the shuttle exploded in a forking plume of smoke and fire. Millions more watched the wrenching tragedy unfold on live television. There were no survivors.

In 1976, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) unveiled the world’s first reusable manned spacecraft, the Enterprise. Five years later, space flights of the shuttle began when Columbia traveled into space on a 54-hour mission. Launched by two solid-rocket boosters and an external tank, only the aircraft-like shuttle entered into orbit around Earth. When the mission was completed, the shuttle fired engines to reduce speed and, after descending through the atmosphere, landed like a glider. Early shuttles took satellite equipment into space and carried out various scientific experiments. The Challenger disaster was the first major shuttle accident.

In the aftermath of the explosion, President Ronald Reagan appointed a special commission to determine what went wrong with Challenger and to develop future corrective measures. The presidential commission was headed by former secretary of state William Rogers, and included former astronaut Neil Armstrong and former test pilot Chuck Yeager. The investigation determined that the explosion was caused by the failure of an “O-ring” seal in one of the two solid-fuel rockets. The elastic O-ring did not respond as expected because of the cold temperature at launch time, which began a chain of events that resulted in the massive explosion. As a result of the explosion, NASA did not send astronauts into space for more than two years as it redesigned a number of features of the space shuttle.

In September 1988, space shuttle flights resumed with the successful launching of the Discovery. Since then, the space shuttle has carried out numerous important missions, such as the repair and maintenance of the Hubble Space Telescope and the construction of the International Space Station.

On February 1, 2003, a second space-shuttle disaster rocked the United States when Columbia disintegrated upon reentry of the Earth’s atmosphere. All aboard were killed. Despite fears that the problems that downed Columbia had not been satisfactorily addressed, space-shuttle flights resumed on July 26, 2005, when Discovery was again put into orbit.

HISTORY.COM
Date: 2009-01-28