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Shuttle Atlantis back on Earth
Mir astronaut Foale reunited with family
October 6, 1997
Web posted at: 10:05 p.m. EDT (0205 GMT)CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (CNN) -- After a one-day weather delay, the space shuttle Atlantis touched down in Florida Monday -- home at last after a successful rendezvous with the Russian space station Mir.
The shuttle, with its crew of seven, landed at the Kennedy Space Center just before 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT), bringing back astronaut Michael Foale after his 4 1/2-month stint as a member of the Mir crew.
Atlantis Lands
Atlantis lands at the Kennedy Space Center
1.1M/35 sec. QuickTime movie
The shuttle originally had been scheduled to land Sunday evening. But low clouds, wind and rain at the Florida landing site forced NASA to postpone the landing, and astronauts orbited for another day.
There had been concerns Monday that wind might force another delay. But at 4:51 p.m. EDT (2051 GMT), NASA gave the go-ahead for Atlantis to begin re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, bringing to an end an 11-day, 4.2 million mile trip.
The weather delay forced Foale -- who had ordered Italian food, beer and a dessert with "a lot of chocolate" for his welcome-back meal -- to extend his stay in space to 145 days, the second-longest mission for an American after that of Shannon Lucid.
A short while after Atlantis rolled to a stop, Foale walked out of the shuttle with assistance and began the first of a battery of medical tests.
He was reunited with his wife, Rhonda, and their two children as NASA's crew quarters. His kids, ages 3 and 5, jumped into his lap.
"He's happy to be back on Earth and happy to be home, and he said it was a great adventure," said Frank Culbertson, director of NASA's shuttle-Mir program.
If the medical tests show no lasting problems from living four months outside of Earth's gravity, Foale likely will accompany the Atlantis astronauts when they return to their home base in Houston late Tuesday.
NASA officials praised the British-born astrophysicist for keeping his cool when an unmanned cargo vessel collided with Mir in June, puncturing one of the space station's modules. Foale and his Russian crew mates also had to cope with a series of equipment failures and computer breakdowns.
These problems led NASA to reconsider its commitment to the Mir program, but eventually the U.S. space agency decided to go ahead with its plans and replace Foale with astronaut David Wolf, who is now aboard the Russian space station.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- Shuttle landing postponed until Monday - October 5, 1997
- Shuttle Atlantis to touch down Sunday evening - October 5, 1997
- Shuttle undocks from Mir for trip home - October 3, 1997
- Shuttle crew unloads space supplies for Mir - September 28, 1997
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