Discovery hurtles towards Florida landing
Space shuttle Discovery hurtled toward Earth early today, bringing the first crew of the international space station back from a four and a half month mission spent building and fixing the orbiting outpost.
Discovery was due to land at 6.31am, almost two weeks after blasting off to retrieve the three space station pioneers.
Thick clouds, stiff gusts and a chance of rain at the shuttle landing strip prompted Nasa to pass up the first landing attempt and aim for the second opportunity one and a half hours later.
The weather improved dramatically as the night wore on, surprising even the forecasters, and Mission Control cleared Discovery for a rare middle-of-the-night touchdown.
"Good news," said shuttle commander James Wetherbee.
By the time Discovery began its fiery descent from orbit, Bill Shepherd and his two Russian crewmates had logged 141 days in space and were eager to be reunited with their wives and other family members.
All the relatives were gathered at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and grateful that the shuttle was not diverted to the backup landing site in California, as had been feared up until the last hour.
Shepherd and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev checked out of space station Alpha on Sunday night, handing over their duties to a fresh three-person crew that was dropped off by Discovery. The shuttle blasted off on the delivery mission March 8.
Alpha was a barren outpost when the three men arrived at the beginning of November and was a sophisticated, sprawling complex when they left. They were the first to live on the space station and had to cope with all kinds of mechanical problems.
Nasa planned a slew of medical tests for the three returning space station men to gauge their bodies’ readjustment to gravity. After so many months of weightlessness, their muscles and bones are sure to be weak and their immune systems depressed.
