Science

Safe return for Discovery

by Stephen Withers

Thursday, 08 November 2007

Space shuttle Discovery landed safely at Kennedy Space Center following a 15-day mission.

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The shuttle landed at 1:01pm Wednesday, local time. Returning to Kennedy rather than using one of the fallback sites saves NASA the time and trouble of transporting the craft back to Florida.

Highlights of the mission included the delivery of the Harmony module to the International Space Station and the repair of a solar array.

"This mission demonstrates the value of having humans in space and our ingenuity in solving problems," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for space operations. "The teams on the ground worked around the clock, along with the crews in space, to develop a plan to fix the array. Our high level of preparedness gave us the edge necessary to make this a successful mission."

Mission STS-120 was also notable for being the first time that a shuttle and the space station have been simultaneously commanded by women.

Work has begun to prepare Discovery for its next flight, scheduled for April 2008.

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