Shuttle Discovery Set to Return to Earth Wednesday

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery has been cleared to return to Earth Wednesday after a two-week mission to add a new component to the International Space Station.

The seven member crew spent Tuesday performing several last-minute procedures to prepare for Wednesday’s landing, including testing their flight control systems.

Officials at NASA, the U.S. space agency, cleared Discovery to land after a final inspection of the shuttle’s heat shield revealed no damage.

NASA says weather conditions are good for Discovery’s landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Wednesday’s landing will be the first coast-to-coast shuttle reentry since 2003, when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated over the southern United States.

Discovery’s crew spent 11 days at the space station delivering and installing a new Italian-built module, and relocating a large solar panel array. The solar panel ripped as it was being unfolded, prompting a risky spacewalk to repair the damage.

If the repair work had not been successful, NASA would have been forced to jettison the solar panel, and it would have jeopardized any further additions to the orbital outpost. A shuttle mission to deliver a European-built laboratory is scheduled next month.

by VOA News

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