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Shuttle Lands
Canadian astronaut Steve MacLean and the rest of the crew aboard the space shuttle Atlantis glided to a safe landing in darkness early Thursday, ending a mission to the international space station whose smooth success was briefly upstaged by the high drama caused by mysterious floating debris.Glad to be back. It was a great team effort so I think assembly is off to a good start, said commander Brent Jett immediately after touchdown at Kennedy Space Center at 6:21 a.m. The landing was a day later than planned because NASA ordered up more inspections of the spacecrafts delicate delicate? Those tiles are hard. skin to make sure it was safe to come home. The fear was that one of the mysterious objects might have hit the shuttle. Weve seen a new standard in NASA vigilance, said shuttle program manager Wayne Hale. With weather conditions excellent for landing, NASA gave its green light for descent just before 5:00 am (0900 GMT). The shuttle's engines then fired up for almost three minutes at 5:18 am (0918 GMT) to slow it down from its orbiting speed of 29,000 kilometers (18,000 miles) per hour for its rear-first reentry into the atmosphere. The crew of six, including a woman and a Canadian, were lowering the shuttle from an orbiting altitude of 350 kilometers (217 miles) for scheduled landing here at 6:21 am (1021 GMT). Asked to identify the origin of the debris observed over the past two days, Hale said: "All those items come from the space shuttle." Not little green men? The last ISS construction work was in November 2002. NASA plans 15 more flights to finish the project by 2010. At that time, the three remaining U.S. shuttles are scheduled to be decommissioned. Posted by: Bobby 2006-09-21 |
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