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Shuttle leaves station, focus shifts to landing

Posted on: Saturday, 6 August 2005, 18:40 CDT

By Irene Klotz

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The shuttle Discovery sailed away from the International Space Station on Saturday while NASA braced for the first landing since the crew of Columbia died minutes before they were due to touch down in February 2003.

"We are going to be pretty darn happy to get to wheels stop and see this good crew step off," said lead flight director Paul Hill. "It'll be a huge sense of accomplishment having gotten through the last two years and demonstrated that we still know how to do this very difficult and dangerous business."

After 13 days in orbit, Discovery is due back at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 4:46 a.m. (0846 GMT) on Monday.

The mission is NASA's first since the Columbia accident. Columbia was damaged during liftoff by a piece of foam insulation that fell off the fuel tank and struck the

ship's wing. As the ship plunged through the atmosphere for landing 16 days later, superheated gases blasted inside the damaged wing, melting the structure and dooming the crew.

A major goal of Discovery's mission was to test how well the newly designed fuel tank worked and practice using a suite of imaging and data analysis techniques to assess the shuttle's condition while it was in orbit.

Though the fuel tank shed much less debris than on previous flights, several large pieces still broke away during launch, prompting NASA to halt future missions until the problems can be readdressed.

OPTIMISTIC FLIGHT SCHEDULE

"Once we get wheels stop, we'll turn our attention to what do we need to do to make sure that subsequent flights are equally safe," shuttle deputy manager Wayne Hale said.

NASA optimistically penciled in Sept. 22 as a target launch date for Atlantis to launch on the second post-Columbia test flight.

"I would not call that a serious launch date at this point," Hale said.

NASA's immediate concern is returning Discovery safely to Earth. It will have two landing attempts in Florida on Monday, and if weather or technical issues preclude touchdown, the shuttle will stay in orbit another day, Hale said.

Backup landing sites in California and New Mexico will be staffed to support a landing on Tuesday if Florida, the prime site, remains unavailable, he said.

After a nine-day service and resupply mission at the space station, the seven shuttle astronauts boarded Discovery and closed the hatch. Pilot Jim Kelly gently pulsed the ship's thrusters to ease away from the station, then looped the space freighter around the outpost while his crewmates snapped pictures to document the station's condition.

Bidding the station crew a final farewell, Kelly then fired the shuttle's jets to leave the station's orbit, the first step toward the trip back home.

While at the station, Discovery astronauts Soichi Noguchi and Steve Robinson conducted three spacewalks, which were mostly devoted to maintenance work on the station and installing a storage platform on its exterior.

The third walk included an unprecedented repair by Robinson on the shuttle's belly as he plucked out two cloth strips protruding from the heat shield.

Discovery transferred tons of cargo to and from the space station, stocking it with food, water and other supplies, and carting off trash and unneeded equipment that had piled up since the last shuttle visit in 2002.

Shuttles are supposed to be primary suppliers for the station, but Russian spacecraft have ferried in goods since the Columbia disaster.

Space station astronauts Sergei Krikalev and John Phillips warmly thanked the Discovery crew on Friday for their visit and sent them off with handshakes and hugs.

"We want to say thank you, all of you," Krikalev said. "We are waiting for this flight for very long years, more than two years already." (Additional reporting by Jeff Franks)

Source: REUTERS

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