 |
| Image above: Space Shuttle Discovery lands in Florida.
Image Credit: NASA |
•
Watch NASA TV
Discovery crew arrive home for Christmas
Space Shuttle Discovery landed safely at 5:32 p.m. EST on Dec. 22 at
Kennedy Space Center, bringing STS-116’s successful mission to the
International Space Station to an end.
The astronauts continued the construction of the station and delivered
a new Expedition 14 crew member.
Discovery launched on Dec. 9 and arrived at the station on the 11th.
The crew installed the P5 spacer truss segment during the first of four
spacewalks. Spacewalkers rewired the station’s power system during
the second and third spacewalks, leaving it in a permanent setup. A fourth
spacewalk was added to allow the crew to retract solar arrays that had
folded improperly.
Discovery also delivered a new crew member and more than two tons of
equipment and supplies to the station, most of which were located in the
SPACEHAB cargo module. Almost two tons of items no longer needed on the
station returned to Earth with Discovery.
The crew spent almost 13 days in space and traveled 5.3 milion statute
miles. The mission was the 117th space shuttle flight and 33rd by Discovery.
STS-116 also was the 20th shuttle mission to visit the space station.
STS-117 is scheduled to launch no earlier than March.
|
