Shuttle Discovery touches down in Florida

Cape Canaveral (Fla), July 17: US Space shuttle Discovery landed smoothly in Florida today at the end of a 13-day mission meant to show the fleet is fit to fly safely, three years after the fatal Columbia accident.

Double sonic booms thundered over central Florida as the shuttle glided through partly cloudy skies heading toward a three-mile-long (five km) runway at the Kennedy Space Center.

Commander Steve Lindsey gently steered the shuttle through a series of turns to burn off speed before the winged spacecraft set down at 0914 hrs.

''Welcome back Discovery. Congratulations on a great mission,'' said astronaut Steve Frick from NASA's Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

''Thanks. It was a great mission, a really great mission,'' said Lindsey.

Discovery's flight was the first in a year and only the second since the 2003 Columbia disaster. The agency has spent more than 1.3 billion dollars on safety upgrades since the accident, which killed seven astronauts and brought construction of the 100 billion dollar International Space Station to a halt.

The agency's chief concern has been to fix foam insulation on the shuttle's external fuel tank, which triggered Columbia's demise. The doomed spacecraft was hit by a piece of falling foam during launch, opening a hole that let in super hot atmospheric gases during re-entry 16 days later.

NASA had hoped to resume space station construction last year, but Discovery's tank shed large pieces of foam during its July 2005 liftoff, forcing the grounding of the fleet while space agency experts worked on the problem.

When the shuttle was launched again on July 4, its tank lost only small pieces of foam, none a threat to the spaceship or its crew.

Discovery reached the space station two days later, transferring a new crew member to the outpost and delivering more than 2.5 tons of supplies.

Piers Sellers and Michael Fossum made three spacewalks, including a repair of the station's transporter so construction of the half-built space station can resume. NASA hopes to launch its first station assembly mission since the Columbia accident around August 28.

The shuttle dropped off German astronaut Thomas Reiter at the station, giving it a full three-person crew for the first time in three years.

Spacewalkers Sellers and Fossum also tested techniques to reach and repair heat shield damage should it occur.

The space agency plans to fly 16 shuttle missions to finish the space station before the fleet is retired in 2010.

Reuters

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