The space shuttle Discovery capped a successful construction mission with a smooth landing in Florida on Wednesday, ending a 27-year flying career for NASA’s most-traveled spaceship as the agency faces an uncertain future.
Discovery commander Steven Lindsey circled his ship through clear, sunny skies over the Kennedy Space Center to burn off speed, then bee-lined toward the marsh-surrounded runway a few kilometers from where the shuttle blasted off for its final space flight on Feb. 24.
Discovery touched down at 11:57am to wrap up a cargo run and construction mission at the International Space Station. The shuttle accumulated 365 days in orbit over 39 missions, racking up more than 238 million kilometers.
It will now be prepared for display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
“Houston, Discovery. For the final time, wheels stop,” Lindsey radioed to Mission Control in Houston, as the shuttle came to a standstill on the runway.
“Great job by you and your crew,” replied astronaut Charlie Hobaugh from Mission Control.
“That was an awesome mission that you all had. You were able to take Discovery up to a full 365 days of actual time on orbit. I think that you’d call that a fleet leader, and a leader of any manned vehicle for time in orbit. So, job well done,” Hobaugh said.
The US is ending the 30-year-old shuttle program because of its high operating costs to free up funds to begin work on new spaceships that can travel to the moon, asteroids and other destinations beyond the space station’s 350km high orbit. Congress has, however, not yet allocated funds to start new programs.
“It’s a pretty bittersweet moment for all of us,” Lindsey said after landing. “As the minutes pass, I’m getting sadder and sadder about this being the last flight.”
Sister ships Endeavour and Atlantis will have their finales next month and in June, respectively, delivering the US$2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer particle detector and a year’s worth of supplies to the station.
The US$100 billion research station is a project of 16 nations and has been under construction since 1998.
During its final mission, Discovery delivered a combination storage room-research lab to the station, as well as an external platform to house large spare parts.
It also carried tonnes of supplies and science gear, including a prototype humanoid robot built in partnership with General Motors.
Astronauts Stephen Bowen and Alvin Drew made two spacewalks to help prepare the station for operations after shuttle retirement. NASA has turned over station crew transport to the Russians, though it hopes US commercial companies will develop space taxis so it can obtain flight services domestically.
Already two firms, Space Exploration Technologies and Orbital Sciences Corp, have NASA contracts to ferry cargo to the outpost. Russia, Europe and Japan currently fly freighters to the station, though none can carry nearly as much as the shuttle.
Discovery is NASA’s oldest surviving spaceship. Two shuttles, Challenger and Columbia, were lost in accidents in 1986 and 2003.
Discovery became the de facto fleet leader, flying both of NASA’s return-to-flight missions after the accidents. It now will lead the fleet into retirement.
A decision about where Endeavour and Atlantis will be displayed is expected next month.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia