Weather improves for Shuttle landing
NASA managers picked Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the space shuttle Discovery to touch down tonight after wrestling with weather conditions at three landing sites.
Shortly afterwards, the shuttle fired its engines in preparation to slow down so it could enter Earth’s atmosphere.
Managers decided to land the shuttle in Florida on its second opportunity, about two hours after they had scrubbed Discovery’s first chance at Kennedy Space Center because of expected rain. But the showers and clouds disappeared through the afternoon.
“The stuff that built up earlier has dissipated,” radioed chief astronaut Steve Lindsey, who checked out the weather at Kennedy in a shuttle training plane.
The other sites under consideration had been Edwards Air Force Base in California, where strong crosswinds prohibited a landing, and White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, which has not been used for a shuttle landing since 1982.
The second landing opportunity was set for 5:32pm EST (2232 GMT).
Kennedy was NASA’s first choice because it would spare the space agency the cost of transporting Discovery back to its home in Florida.
