Discovery Crew Back To Earth
After resting from a trip to the international space station, members of the space shuttle Discovery crew told reporters they had a successful mission readying the outpost for its next visitors. Now, all that remains to be fixed are the glitches on Earth.
Overshadowing the recent supply mission is uncertainty about both the status of the next shuttle flight and scheduled follow-up trips to the new space station.
Those fears were momentarily set aside as Discovery dropped out of the night sky and floated to a ghostly touchdown at 2:03 a.m. Sunday to close out NASA's first space station servicing and supply mission, reports CBS News Space Consultant Bill Harwood.
Heralded by twin sonic booms, Discovery approached the Kennedy Space Center from the southwest before commander Kent Rominger, a former "Topgun" Navy pilot, took over manual control and guided the shuttle through a sweeping turn to line up on the runway.
"Welcome home, Discovery, from the first docking mission to the international space station."
The seven astronauts skipped the traditional shuttle walkaround and picture taking, and instead asked to be driven straight to crew quarters. They left managers waiting on the landing strip, fueling speculation that one or more of the crew might be nauseated, as sometimes happens to returning astronauts.
On Monday morning, commander Kent Rominger told reporters no one was sick, although it took "a while to get our Earth legs back." Because everything seemed to take longer than usual at touchdown, and because he and his crewmates had plans for later in the day, they decided "to head on back and get on with our day off."
"It is so nice at wheels stop for at least a day just to, ahhhhhh, relax and go see family and friends ... basically get away from it all for a day," Rominger said.
He added: "We had a fantastic adventure."
During their 10 days in orbit, the astronauts unloaded 2 tons of supplies at the space station for future inhabitants, replaced bad electronic boxes and installed mufflers over noisy fans.
On their way home, they dropped off a glittering, mirrored satellite called Starshine that schoolchildren will track until it falls from orbit at the beginning of next year.
Astronauts aren't due back at the space station until December, when they're supposed to haul up more supplies aboard Atlantis. But that mission cannot take place -- and neither can any other missions to the 6-month-old space station -- until the Russians launch a crucial service module that will double as crew quarters.
The component is scheduled to fly in November, 1 and 1/2 years behind schedule, provided all the testing between now and then goes well. The Russian Space Agency's money problems and delays have long bothered NASA.
"I always hope for the best, plan for the worst," NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin said following Discovery's return.
NASA's more immediate concern invlves Columbia and the $1.5 billion observatory Chandra, also running a year late because of a multitude of problems.
The upper-stage motor on Chandra is similar to one that malfunctioned aboard a military satellite in April, leaving the spacecraft in a uselessly low orbit. An Air Force investigation into the failure continues.
For now, NASA is proceeding toward a July 22 launch of Columbia, the only shuttle big enough to hold the 45-foot X-ray telescope. Technicians moved Columbia to the launch pad Monday.
The problem is that NASA's oldest shuttle is due for its regularly scheduled tune-up and, unless it flies soon, it will have to undergo eight to nine months of maintenance before launching Chandra. That would bump the mission -- the first to be commanded by a woman -- into late 2000.