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Shuttle Discovery lands safely in California
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-08-10 08:45

SONIC BOOMS OVER CALIFORNIA

The Space Shuttle Discovery is towed off the runway in Edwards Air Force Base in California August 9, 2005. [Reuters]

Radio communications between the shuttle commander and mission control fell largely silent as the shuttle nosedived toward the Mojave Desert landing strip. Double sonic booms sounded over southern California as the shuttle dipped below the speed of sound.

Pilot Jim Kelly steered Discovery in a wide circle to burn off speed 30,000 feet (9,000 metres) above the runway -- a point in the flight Columbia never reached.

Collins took over the final maneuvers and gently eased the 100-ton spacecraft onto the concrete landing strip.

The crew of the space shuttle Discovery (L-R) Charlie Camarda, Wendy Lawrence, Steve Robinson, Commander Eileen Collins, Andy Thomas of Australia, Soichi Noguchi of Japan and Pilot James Kelly stand on the tarmac after their successful landing at Edwards Air Force base in California August 9, 2005. [Reuters]

"We're happy to be back and we congratulate the whole team on a job well done," she said.

NASA scored some notable successes on its long-awaited return-to-flight mission, launched on July 26 after the agency spent $1 billion on repairs and safety upgrades. Discovery carried badly needed supplies and equipment to the space station and used new technology, including laser scanners, to search for damage on the outside of the shuttle.

Discovery's crew performed three successful spacewalks -- replacing a faulty steering gyroscope and reviving another on the space station.

But the crew also had to perform an unexpected repair with an unprecedented and risky spacewalk to the belly of the shuttle to remove bits of cloth filler protruding from the spacecraft's heat-shield tiles, which NASA managers feared could cause dangerous overheating on re-entry.

The fuel tank foam problem prompted NASA to ground the shuttle fleet until it can find a fix. The U.S. space agency has set September 22 as a target for the next shuttle launch but NASA managers have said the date is unrealistic.

"We're going to try as hard as we can to get back in space this year, because we have a big construction project we're working on and we need the shuttle to do it," Griffin said. "So we're going to try as hard as we can but we're not going to go until we're ready to go."

The shuttle, scheduled to be retired in 2010, is the key to the future of the unfinished International Space Station because it is the only spacecraft capable of carrying large components into space.

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