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Discovery departs ISS, lands safely |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Sunday, 20 July 2008
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 (From June 14, 2008) Following a successful and busy construction mission to the International Space Station, the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery is now back on terra firma. The 15-day flight to the ISS began on May 31, and involved the installation of the station’s largest module, as well as a much-needed toilet repair that has made life in orbit a little easier.
Having finished their installation work on the station on June 6, the crew set about testing the station’s new robotic arm, which is attached to the Japanese Kibo laboratory. The 10-meter arm passed all its tests with flying colors, with its installation having gone much more smoothly than that of the Canadian-built Dextre manipulator a few months prior.
Astronauts Mike Fossum and Ron Garan completed a final third spacewalk on June 8. They replaced an empty nitrogen tank on the station’s exterior and also collected samples of debris coming from a grinding solar array joint.
Two days later, the hatch between Discovery and the ISS was closed. Left on the station was NASA’s Greg Chamitoff, who is scheduled to stay in orbit until the next ISS-bound shuttle mission in November. Chamitoff is replacing US astronaut Garrett Reisman, who spent two months aboard the station.
After undocking from the station the next morning, the Discovery crew performed a fly-around of the ISS and began to adjust its orbit for reentry. The sensor-tipped inspection boom was finally used to scan the shuttle’s heat tile belly, finding no worrisome damage. Because of the size of the JEM segment Discovery carried into orbit, there was no space in the shuttle’s cargo hold for the 15-meter boom. It was left at the ISS by the Space Shuttle Endeavour and retrieved by the Discovery crew upon arrival. Normally, the inspection is conducted on the second day of flight, soon after launch.
With a clean scan of the heat shield completed, the shuttle began its return trip to Earth. Greeted by clear skies, Discovery safely touched down at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:15 AM.
The next space shuttle flight scheduled is a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission aboard Atlantis. It is due to launch on October 8, 2008.
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