Atlantis glides to safe landing
Space shuttle Atlantis and its six astronauts glided to a safe landing in pre-dawn darkness at Cape Canaveral, Florida, today.
This brings an end to a mission whose smooth success was briefly upstaged by the high drama caused by mysterious floating debris.
Atlantis’ six astronauts, who have been in the cosmos since September 9, were supposed to land a day earlier after successfully completing the first mission dedicated to assembling the space station since the Columbia shuttle accident in 2003.
But Nasa decided to wait a day because of a storm front moving through Florida and the discovery of floating objects near the spacecraft.
A thorough investigation yesterday of the shuttle’s heat shield, which protects it from hot gases that accompany re-entry into the atmosphere, showed no damage from the debris.
