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Discovery lands after 12-day mission
August 19, 1997
Web posted at: 7:56 a.m. EDT (0756 GMT)(CNN) -- After spending an extra day in orbit because of weather concerns for landing, the U.S. space shuttle Discovery touched down Tuesday to successfully complete its 12-day mission.
The shuttle and its crew of six arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida just after 7 a.m. in a picture-perfect landing maneuver.
"Welcome home. Looked like a perfect flight from start to finish," Mission Control told commander Curtis Brown Jr.
Shuttle Discovery lands 1.6 MB/28 sec./320x240
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QuickTime movie"Discovery is glad to be home," Brown said, shortly after the shuttle launched its brake chute and slowly rolled to a standstill at the space center.
Flight controllers earlier in the morning had been concerned about rain showers moving in and the chance of low clouds.
An hour before Monday's scheduled touchdown, NASA decided to delay the landing because of fears that pre-dawn haze might turn into fog. No fog developed, though.
Shuttle Discovery landsThe crew spent the additional day aloft enjoying the spectacular view from 160 miles up and reactivating a few science experiments.
During their 12-day flight, the five U.S. astronauts and one Canadian worked with an environmental satellite, tested a robot arm designed for the future international space station and observed Comet Hale-Bopp with an ultraviolet telescope.
The crew released the German-built satellite within hours of Discovery's launch on August 7. It flew free of the shuttle for nine days, collecting valuable data on Earth's ozone layer.
The astronauts also tried out Japan's $100 million robot arm, a prototype of what will fly on the space station. They lifted a box and opened a small door using the 5-foot, remote-controlled arm.
Such a device could be used to grab small payloads outside the station and bring them inside.
Last weekend, the crew retrieved the ozone-monitoring satellite, which stored most of its data on board for examination on the ground.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
- Message Board: Shuttle Discovery mission
- CNN In-Depth: Space
Related stories:
- Space shuttle's return delayed due to weather - August 18, 1997
- Satellite survives close encounter with space junk - August 12, 1997
- Shuttle begins busy science mission - August 7, 1997
Related sites:
- Space Shuttle Discovery Kennedy Space Center, Fla. Aug. 7, 1997 - launch information from FLORIDA TODAY's Space Online page
- Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center - Look here for the latest schedule of launches from Cape Canaveral Air Station
- NASA Shuttle Web
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