• Watch NASA TV
Discovery lands safely in Florida

The six-member crew of STS-121 has now left Discovery.

The astronauts took their first steps out of the orbiter at Kennedy Space Center to move into the Crew Hatch Access Vehicle, where they were given a brief medical exam to ensure they're healthy.

After receiving a clean bill of health by doctors, Commander Steve Lindsey and his crew took a walk around Discovery to examine the orbiter. The seventh crew member, Thomas Reiter of the European Space Agency, remained at the International Space Station.

Image above: STS-121 crew inspects tiles on Space Shuttle Discovery after their mission to the International Space Station. Photo Credit: NASA/KSC

The astronauts posed for post-flight photos and Lindsey addressed the media with a wide smile thanking everyone with NASA and at Kennedy for all the hard work that went into the culmination of this successful mission.

He said, "This is my fourth flight and I've done four walkarounds and I've never seen a vehicle that looked as clean as this one did - we had very few problems."

He said there were two major objectives of this mission and both were accomplished paving the way for the continued assembly of the International Space Station and regular space shuttle flights.

Before traveling back to the Operations and Checkout Building, Lindsey concluded by saying "I'd like to thank this crew standing here -- they were absolutely superb the entire flight -- I couldn't have asked more from them. It was a privilege for me to serve with them."

NASA's silver Astrovan was waiting to carry the astronauts back to the crew quarters. There, they'll meet with their families and undergo additional physical exams before returning to Johnson Space Center in Texas.

Post-Landing Press Briefing
NASA officials held a briefing at Kennedy Space Center following the successful landing of Space Shuttle Discovery.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, N3RA, said, "It's a real honor for me to be here as part of this team, I think you've seen what the team can accomplish -- they're as motivated and skilled a group of people as I've ever had the opportunity to work with."

Associate Administrator for Space Operations William Gerstenmaier agreed that it was a great day and commented on the how the hard work and effort the team has put in came to fruition during this flight. Gerstenmaier said there'd be challenges ahead while gearing up for assembly of the remainder of the space station but added he was confident that the teams in place were preparing to achieve that goal.

Mike Leinbach, NASA launch director was on hand to comment on how Discovery fared through the flight. "Discovery is in outstanding condition," he said. "We had to search for dings to the tiles, and the couple we saw were very, very minor."

Later in the day the orbiter will be towed to the Orbiter Processing Facility where it will be readied for it's next flight on mission STS-116.

Touchdown!
Discovery glides to a picture-perfect landing at Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility, successfully concluding the STS-121 mission.
Watch Discovery's landing (Windows Media Player)

• Watch NASA TV

Latest news stories..

• Get our news headlines for your website • Submit your news story