The Discovery crew yesterday bid farewell to their two hosts in space and readied for the home journey of the first space shuttle flight since the 2003 Columbia disaster.
"What we're telling them here is we thank them for being such great hosts," Discovery Commander Eileen Collins said.
"These are memories we'll have for ever," she told the two residents of the International Space Station.
Live footage broadcast by NASA showed the seven Discovery astronauts, including a Japanese national, hugging and shaking hands with the Russian and US astronauts who hosted them in space for eight days.
Following a brief farewell ceremony, the Discovery crew sealed the hatches, and later undocked from the orbiting space lab in what NASA described as "the first step on the road home to the Kennedy Space Center."
Pilot James Kelly then maneuvered the space shuttle into position to fly around the space station to photograph it and check it for eventual wear and tear. After the maneuver, Discovery was scheduled to head to the orbital position needed for tomorrow's reentry into Earth's atmosphere.
The crew was earlier given the green light for their return after NASA decided loose fibers on the orbiter's thermal blanket should not compromise the shuttle's safety as it reenters the atmosphere.
But once it is back, Discovery will be grounded with the rest of the fleet until nagging problems with the shuttle's thermal insulation have been fixed, though NASA managers still hope they can launch another flight on Sept. 22.
Foam insulation had fallen off the shuttle's external fuel tank as the craft blasted into orbit on July 26.
The same problem doomed Columbia, after debris hit the orbiter's left wing, causing a crack that eventually allowed superheated gases to penetrate the structure upon re-entry into the atmosphere.
A key goal of Discovery's 13-day mission was to test improvements made to the shuttle since Columbia burst into flames on Feb. 1, 2003.
"We've got every objective accomplished on this mission. We now have data we've never had before," said Michael Griffin, administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Collins agreed.
"We've been happy to finally put the icing on the cake through this mission, we are so happy things have worked out so well, see you next week, see you on the ground," she said. "It's been a wild ride."
The crew still faces some nerve-wracking moments when it starts reentry into the atmosphere.
"You only get one shot at it," said Paul Hill, lead shuttle flight director.
"De-orbit is not a risk-free activity," he said.
"During de-orbit, I'm sure I'll have a thought or two about Rick Husband and his crew," he said of the seven astronauts who perished aboard Columbia.
The shuttle is scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center, on Florida's Atlantic coast, at 4:46am tomorrow.
NASA could leave the shuttle in orbit an extra two days if the weather turns bad.
Before the descent, officials will check data to confirm Discovery is in good shape. New detectors pinpoint any abnormal temperature rise on reentry.
The mission initially had be scheduled to last 12 days, but an extra day was added on so the crew could transfer as much material and provisions as possible to the space station, amid uncertainty over the date of the next shuttle flight.
The crew also retrieved waste and equipment to clear out space in the cramped orbiting lab.
During the mission Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi and his US counterpart Stephen Robinson conducted three spacewalks.
On Wednesday Robinson became the first astronaut ever to carry out a space walk beneath the shuttle during orbit, to extract two protruding pieces of fiber that risked overheating during the shuttle's re-entry.
In another spacewalk, Noguchi and Robinson tested repair techniques adopted after the Columbia tragedy.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS