Shuttle is coming home

[Guest Glenn]

Live from NASA TV via Austar. Shuttle is beginning her decent. Approximately 45 minutes to touch down.

 

 

[Guest Glenn]

10:12 AEST expected for touch down at Edwards Air Force Base California.

 

 

[Guest Glenn]

Just touched down at 10:12pm eastern time. Good to see her back safe.

 

 

[Guest Glenn]

Depends how interesting it is :)

 

News from Reuters:

 

Source: ReutersEDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE: The Space Shuttle Discovery touched down safely in California last night, marking the culmination of the first gut-wrenching shuttle flight since Columbia disintegrated in 2003.

 

Commander Eileen Collins landed Discovery at Edwards Air Force Base on schedule at 5:12am (10.12pm AEST), ending a 14-day mission that NASA managers hailed a success.

 

Discovery and its crew of seven, including Australian Andy Thomas, swooped to a safe landing through the darkness of the Mojave Desert, after their return was delayed by bad weather four times in the previous 24 hours.

 

The detour to California came after thunderstorms in Cape Canaveral, Florida, prevented the shuttle returning to home base.

 

"Congratulations on a truly spectacular test flight," Mission Control said once Discovery came to a stop. "Welcome home, friends."

 

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

 

The inherently dangerous ride down through the atmosphere - more anxiety-ridden than normal because of what happened to Columbia 2 1/2 years ago -- went smoothly. No problems were immediately reported by Mission Control.

 

Held up a day by bad weather in Florida, the shuttle soared across the Pacific and over Southern California, passing just north of Los Angeles on its way to Edwards. NASA adjusted the flight path in order to skirt Los Angeles because of new public safety considerations in the wake of the Columbia disaster, which rained debris onto Texas and Louisiana.

 

Discovery's journey, which began with a liftoff on July 26, spanned 219 orbits of Earth and 9.3million kilometres.

 

After a tense fortnight in orbit, the mission has highlighted that the future of space shuttle missions remains in doubt.

 

The shuttle Atlantis had been scheduled to fly to the international space station next month, but NASA has grounded the three remaining shuttles after engineers failed to resolve the take-off problem that led to the demise of the Columbia. The embattled space agency was forced to concede that after spending 2 1/2 years and $US1billion ($1.3billion) on improving safety, it was only luck that spared Discovery when foam peeled off an external fuel tank during take-off and narrowly missed the orbiter.

 

NASA officials remain confident that it can find a solution to the debris problem, perhaps quickly enough to allow Atlantis to take off as planned.

 

"Until we run out of lead time to make the September window, we'll preserve it, because that's what the taxpayers pay us to do," the agency's administrator, Michael Griffin, said this week. NASA maintains it needs the ageing shuttle, which was conceived with 1970s technology, for another five years and 15 missions to finish the space station, which is more than 25 times over its $US4billion budget.

 

However, with popular opinion turning against the shuttle, politicians who hold the purse strings may force NASA's hand.