Mission Discovery: Shuttle Astronauts to Land Today

NASA's space shuttle Discovery, seen here in an orbital view taken during its STS-116 mission by International Space Station astronauts, is due to land on Dec. 22, 2006. CREDIT: NASA.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA’s space shuttle Discovery is poised to ferry seven astronauts back to Earth later today, but much depends on Mother Nature.

The shuttle’s STS-116 crew is due back on Earth at about 3:56 p.m. EST (1856 GMT) after a successful 13-day construction flight to the International Space Station (ISS), but only if a bleak weather forecast eases at NASA’s Shuttle Landing Facility here at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC).

“Currently the Kennedy Space Center is forecast ‘no go,’” Norm Knight, NASA’s entry flight director for Discovery’s STS-116 mission, said late Thursday.

A low cloud layer and rain showers are expected at touchdown time at KSC, Knight said, adding that high winds anticipated at Discovery’s prime backup landing strip on California’s Edwards Air Force Base also afflict that site’s potential for the shuttle’s return.

Discovery shuttle commander Mark Polansky and his fellow crewmates have a good chance—weather wise—of setting down at NASA’s third landing alternative, White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, should KSC and Edwards prove untenable, NASA officials said.

“My wife cares where we land. I believe she and the other families are going to be in Florida,” Polansky told reporters Thursday. “But the real answer is, no I really don’t care where we land.”

Polansky said he and shuttle pilot William Oefelein have trained exhaustively to handle landing Discovery—effectively a 100-ton glider during reentry—at KSC, Edwards or Northrup Strip at White Sands.

“I’m not concerned at all about the ability of the crew to safely get the orbiter on the ground,” Polansky said.

Discovery carries enough supplies to stay in orbit until Saturday, but NASA flight rules call for reserving that day in case of an unanticipated orbiter systems glitch or malfunction.

Mission managers sacrificed an extra weather day for Discovery’s STS-116 flight earlier this week in order to stage an unplanned fourth spacewalk to subdue a stubborn ISS solar array and fold it away. The decision prevented the solar array from impacting the station’s assembly sequence, but runs the risk of adding two extra months to Discovery’s turnaround time should it land at White Sands.

“We decided that that was fair trade,” Shannon said, adding that Discovery is not scheduled to fly again until October 2007, and that the information learned in wrangling the solar array will be vital for the STS-117 mission in March when another solar wing must be furled. 

Knight said that should weather preclude a KSC landing on Discovery’s first return attempt the plan will then be to try for Edwards or KSC on the next orbit, which would place touchdown around 5:30 p.m. EST (2230 Dec. 23 GMT). On the third orbit, both Edwards and White Sands are available with landing slated for around 7:00 p.m. EST (0000 Dec. 23 GMT) followed by a later Edwards opportunity.

Rookies no more

Accompanying Polansky and Oefelein to Earth aboard Discovery are STS-116 mission specialists Nicholas Patrick, Robert Curbeam, Joan Higginbotham and European Space Agency (ESA) astronauts Christer Fuglesang and Thomas Reiter. Polansky, Curbeam and Reiter aside, all of the shuttle astronauts made their first spaceflight during the STS-116 mission.

“We’ve bonded on the ground,” Higginbotham said Thursday. “I think we’ve grown even closer here in space.”

Higginbotham and her crewmates not only staged three spacewalks to install a new section of the station’s main truss and rewire its power grid, but performed the extra spacewalk, delivered a fresh load of cargo and performed the orbital laboratory’s first partial crew change.

NASA touted the mission as its most complicated shuttle flight to date, though it will likely be eclipsed in future ISS construction missions.

“I am extremely proud of the team,” Shannon said, adding that a lack of major shuttle glitches contributed to the mission’s success. “We got a little bit lucky in how well everything performed.”

Discovery’s crew change comes in the form of Reiter, who is returning home after spending almost six months aboard the ISS as part of its three-astronaut crew.

“I’m really looking forward to come back after almost half a year,” Reiter said during his spaceflight, and said Thursday that he hopes that he will be able to quickly recover from the toll such a long-duration spaceflight took on his body. “I hope it doesn’t take too long, maybe three of four days.”

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, who launched aboard Discovery on Dec. 9, has taken Reiter’s place with the space station’s Expedition 14 crew and will stay on to join the orbital laboratory’s Expedition 15 mission next year.

“We wish here well with the rest of her increment and we’ll miss here,” Polansky told Williams before leaving her aboard the ISS Monday.

Reiter will return to Earth in a special recumbent—or laid back—seat to ease the stresses of the return to gravity on his body. His STS-116 crewmates, by comparison, sit in an upright position during reentry.

Looking ahead towards landing, Polansky said Thursday that he his crew is fully aware of the weather woes plaguing flight controllers on Earth.

“Beamer and I flew together on STS-98 and we waved off two times and landed in California,” Polansky said of himself and crewmate Robert Curbeam. “So these things happen and we just have to roll with the punches.”

• Images: The Spacewalks of NASA’s STS-116
• Images: Discovery’s STS-116 Launch Day Gallery
• Mission Discovery: The ISS Rewiring Job of NASA’s STS-116
• Complete Space Shuttle Mission Coverage
• The Great Space Quiz: Space Shuttle Countdown
• All About the Space Shuttle