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CNN Today

Space Shuttle Atlantis Lands in California

Aired February 20, 2001 - 3:31 p.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JOIE CHEN, CNN ANCHOR: Back here at CNN Center, watching the much waited-for shuttle landing taking place this afternoon, Southern California. Our space correspondent Miles O'Brien is here: delayed because of the weather, but now they think it's going to happen in the next couple of minutes.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's one thing about a shuttle landing. Once they do that de-orbit burn, there will be a landing about an hour after that. And we are now about two minutes away from the landing of the Space Shuttle Atlantis after a journey of 5.2 million miles: 207 orbits.

Those pictures don't look so hot. Take a look at this shot, though. This is from onboard the space shuttle, shot right through the pilot's windshield there. It's a head-up display that you're looking at that.

You can see right there if you look closely that that is indicating they are taking 1-G of capability to run that through the coding telestrator. I can show you where that is.

The speed right now is in the neighborhood of about 300 miles per hour. There you see the speed right there, OK, and you see he's going to be bleeding off speed. The pilot commander is Ken Cockrell.

There's the runway right down there. Now, you might think if you're a pilot that there's no way that he could make that runway, that he'd be way too long.

Well, the Space Shuttle Atlantis is coming in at a very steep angle, about 20 degrees, which is about seven times steeper than a commercial airliner. There it comes in.

They had a 13-day mission. They installed the $1.4 billion Destiny Science Lab at the International Space Station. The crew of five now on short final for the runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base.

Let's listen in to Kyle Herring, NASA's commentator.

KYLE HERRING, NASA COMMENTATOR: On final approach now, 3,400 feet, setting up for the preflare maneuver and the gear deploy upcoming at an altitude of about 300 feet off the runway.

O'BRIEN: The view from the cockpit of the Space Shuttle Atlantis fed down live. The landing gear deploys about 15 seconds before landing. There it goes. You can hit your watch 15 seconds to touchdown, the Space Shuttle Atlantis having traveled 5.2 million miles.

HERRING: And the landing gear is now down and locked.

O'BRIEN: And touchdown.

HERRING: Landing gear touchdown.

O'BRIEN: Landing on runway 22, the concrete runway at Edwards Air Force Base. This is the arrival point that NASA prefers not to choose if it can avoid it. The whole cost involved of getting the shuttle back to the Kennedy Space Center, getting it ready for -- to be in the place where it can be ready for the next launch is about a million dollars. That's what it takes to get a crew out there to get the orbiter ready for flight, and it gets hoisted on to a 747 and sent back to the Cape. All of that takes about six days time.

But what you're looking at here is the successful conclusion to, by any stretch of the imagination, is a successful mission to the International Space Station. This the seventh construction run to that space station. No less than 33 shuttle missions lie ahead before that $100 billion space station is complete, Joie.

CHEN: All right, our space correspondent Miles O'Brien, a successful landing for Atlantis. Thanks, Miles.

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