NASA's STS-120 astronauts head home from space station

William Atkins
Monday, 05 November 2007 20:16

Science - Space

The STS-120 crew undocked early Monday morning, November 5, 2007, from the space station after their adventuresome and successful trip, which for all intents and purposes allowed the Space Station to continue toward its completion in 2010.           

Discovery pilot and U.S. astronaut George Zamka was at the helm of the space shuttle as it pulled away from the space station. He fired off the steering rockets at about 5:32 a.m. EST (Eastern Standard Time).

They will travel about two days aboard the space shuttle before landing at the NASA Kennedy Space Center at about 1:02 p.m. EST on Wednesday, November 7, 2007. NASA Television and various television stations will carry the landing.

International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 16 flight engineer Clayton Anderson ended his stay at the space station. He returned home with the STS-120 crew. Remaining onboard the station is U.S. astronaut Dan Tani.

NASA is still not out of the woods yet. The rotary joint on another solar panel needs to be repaired. Currently, NASA officials contend that the Japanese scientific laboratory, to be delivered in April 2008, will not have sufficient electrical power under the current ailing joint.

NASA engineers will go off and investigate metal filings that are being brought back with the crew to find out what is causing the problem. ISS crewmembers are tentatively the ones who will fix the problem once it is identified.

Because of the expert work performed by the STS-120 space shuttle crew and the Expedition 16 space station crew, along with various groups around the world, the International Space Station will continue to be able to provide research and development experiments to the world’s commercial and science communities and allow space travelers a central location for future manned space missions.