Discovery Landing Caps Solid Year For NASA

NASA began 2006 having flown only a single space shuttle mission since the Columbia disaster three years earlier.

After Friday's landing of space shuttle Discovery and its seven astronauts, the U.S. space agency will end the year with three successful shuttle missions under its belt and the resumption of construction on the international space station.

"Yes, this was a big year," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said after Discovery touched down. "Each and every time we do this, it is a minor miracle. It is the hardest thing that human beings have yet learned how to do."

Discovery safely returned to Earth after some last-minute suspense over which landing site to use, ending a smooth, 13-day mission during which the astronauts rewired the space station and delivered U.S. astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams to the orbiting outpost for a six-month stay.

It was not until about an hour before the landing that NASA decided where to bring the shuttle home. There were showers over Florida, which forced NASA to bypass the first opportunity to land, and crosswinds at the usual back-up landing site, Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert.

NASA was not thrilled about the next-best landing site, White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where the weather looked good. Only once has a shuttle landed there, in 1982.

Ultimately, NASA gave the go-ahead for a Florida landing when it appeared the rain would not reach Cape Canaveral. The shuttle came in through scattered clouds and touched down on a floodlit runway in the early evening darkness.

"It's a thrill to have you in Florida," Mission Control said.

After the shuttle rolled to a stop, ending its 5.3 million-mile journey, Discovery commander Mark Polansky said: "You have seven thrilled people right here. ... I think it's going to be a great holiday."

Less than two hours after touching down, Polansky and four other crew members — pilot William Oefelein, and mission specialists Robert Curbeam, Joan Higginbotham and Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang of the European Space Agency — walked around the shuttle and inspected it under a light drizzle and blustery wind.

Missing from the walk-around inspection were U.S. astronaut Nicholas Patrick and German astronaut Thomas Reiter of the European Space Agency, who came back from a six-month stay at the space station and felt the pull of gravity Friday for the first time since July.

"Nick was feeling slightly, just a bit woozy as well," Griffin said. "He's doing just fine."

Discovery's crew made four spacewalks, installing a two-ton addition to the space station and switching the orbiting outpost from a temporary power source to a permanent one. The fourth spacewalk was an impromptu affair, added when NASA was unable to get an accordion-like solar array on the space station to fold up.

Two spacewalkers tightened wires and nudged the panels, finally getting the 115-foot-long array to collapse into its compartment like a jack-in-the-box.

"In a tough situation like this, they figured out what the problem was ... and continued with the rest of the construction," said former shuttle commander Eileen Collins, who now serves on a NASA advisory panel. "I'm really proud of the guys."

Other than that, the mission was practically flawless.

Curbeam took part in all four spacewalks, setting a record for the most in a single shuttle mission. Fuglesang, the first Swede in space, took three spacewalks.

The rewiring job set the stage for two new major additions to the space station from Europe and Japan that will be installed over the next two years. Five shuttle flights to continue space station construction are scheduled for next year.

"We've had a fantastic year," said Kirk Shireman, space station program deputy manager. "Next year is going to be bigger."