Astronomy

Shuttle Discovery has finally made it home after their 14 day mission – which was very successful. The crew landed at the Kennedy Space Center Saturday morning. Mission Control was happy to see the shuttle and radioed them congratulations to the Commander Mary Kelly and its crew, “Beautiful landing, Mark, and congratulations on a great mission.”

The shuttle’s 14-day mission at the International Space Station (ISS) involved installing a new Japanese space lab that is now the largest research facility aboard the ISS, and a new pump that helped fixed a broken toilet that was malfunctioning for about 10 days.

Scheduled maintenance on an exterior cooling system and further inspection of a rotating joint for a pair of solar wings also occurred when the shuttle was docked at the ISS. NASA remains dedicated to finishing the $100 billion space station before the shuttle is retired in two years, which will force NASA to rely on Russian spacecraft to get to space.

Astronaut Garrett Reisman, who was stationed aboard the ISS for 95 days, returned home while astronaut Greg Chamitoff will remain on the ISS. NASA mission commanders noticed a metal clip that was lost from the shuttle’s rudder yesterday, but accurately guessed it would not affect the landing. The U.S. space agency said the 2.5″ x 1″ clip is only needed during into an ascent into space.

The shuttle crew also inspected Discovery’s heat shield several times while it was docked aboard the ISS. Nothing of significance was found, which allowed the shuttle to land as scheduled. NASA requires constant surveillance of the shuttle shield after the Columbia shuttle disaster in which the shuttle disintegrated as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere during a mission in space.

NASA must now work to fix the launch pad used by shuttles, as the pad lost more than 5,000 bricks during Discovery’s lift off on May 31. The next shuttle launch is scheduled for some time in October, when shuttle Atlantis will head to the Hubble Space Telescope.