Touchdown For Atlantis

Shuttle Back On Earth After Successful Mission

(CBS)  The space shuttle Atlantis landed safely at Florida's Kennedy Space Center Friday, ending an 11-day mission to the International Space Station.

While in orbit the seven-astronaut crew worked with the Russian and American space station crew to add the first piece of a girder truss that will eventually stretch 360 feet, holding an acre of solar panels to power the growing station.

Shuttle commander Mike Bloomfield fired Atlantis' engines during a pass over the Indian Ocean, slowing it enough to drop from orbit, then fly like an airplane once well within the atmosphere. Landing came at 12:27 p.m. EDT.

One of the Atlantis crew, Jerry Ross, has logged a number of space milestones. Ross has served on a record seven missions in space and also set a U.S. record this week with his ninth spacewalk. He has logged 58 hours and 18 minutes of space walk time. He is a grandfather and has been an astronaut since 1980, a year before the first space shuttle flight.

Speaking on the runway with CBS News Space Consultant William Harwood and other reporters, Ross looked back on his career in space.

"It's great to be back in the United States of America, a place that can do tremendous things like this and can share those with the rest of the world through international partnerships," Ross said. "I'd just like to thank NASA, thank the country, for the tremendous opportunities I've had to serve with them."

The weather was ideal for the early afternoon touchdown: a gentle breeze and scattered clouds.

The astronauts' homecoming brings to an end an 11-day mission that began April 8.

“That was a great landing and a great way to end a mission that has been superb in all respects,” Mission Control radioed moments after the landing. “You've attached the beginning of the backbone of the station.”

The space station and its three occupants were crossing the Florida peninsula and heading out over the Atlantic as the shuttle rolled down the runway. Attack helicopters were on patrol as part of the heightened security put in place after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Bloomfield and his crew left space station Alpha 27,000 pounds heavier with the addition of the aluminum girder. Solar wings and radiators will be bolted to it, giving the orbiting outpost more power for laboratories to be added in the future.

Spacewalkers ventured out four times to install the $600 million beam. They also tested a $190 million railcar mounted to tracks on the girder.

The three-man crew still aboard the ISS has to complete two more months of a six-month stay. They are scheduled to return home in June. Early Saturday, the three astronauts -- Expedition 4 commander Yury Onufrienko, Daniel Bursch and Carl Walz -- plan to abandon ship for an hour to move their Soyuz lifeboat to a different docking port.

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CBS News Space Consultant William Harwood has covered America's space program full time for more than 15 years, focusing on space shuttle operations, planetary exploration and astronomy. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood provides up-to-the-minute space reports for CBS News and regularly contributes to Spaceflight Now and The Washington Post.