Space Shuttle Discovery's Landing Delayed a Few Hours

This story was updated at 12:30 p.m. EDT.

NASA delayed the planned Saturday return of the space shuttle Discovery by a few hours after thick clouds and stiff winds prevented an initial landing attempt in Florida.

Discovery is now slated to land at NASA?s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at about 3:14 p.m. EDT (1914 GMT) today, a bit later than planned, to complete a successful 13-day construction flight to the International Space Station. Clouds and high winds prevented the shuttle from targeting a 1:39 p.m. EDT (1739 GMT) touchdown.

?We think both those things have a good chance of looking better for our second opportunity today,? Mission Control radioed the crew.

?Houston, Discovery copies,? shuttle commander Lee Archambault called back.

Discovery now has one more chance to land at its Cape Canaveral, Fla., runway today before standing down until Sunday.

Shuttle entry flight director Richard Jones told reporters Friday that he will aim for a Florida landing today and, if needed, on Sunday because of favorable weather forecasts for both days. NASA typically prefers to land shuttles at the Florida spaceport to avoid the extra time and cost of ferrying orbiters from a backup runway in California. Discovery has enough supplies to stay in space until Tuesday, he added.

Full power to space station

Archambault and his crew spent eight days docked at the space station, where they performed three spacewalks to install the new expansive solar arrays - the outpost?s fourth and final set - and unfurl them to their 240-foot (72-meter) wingspan.

The $298 million solar arrays delivered by Discovery balanced out the space station?s look, giving it eight wings total (two per side), and increased its power grid by 25 percent. They also completed its backbone-like main truss, which is now longer than a football field in length.

With all four arrays in place, the station is designed to generate enough electricity to feed a neighborhood of 42 average size homes, power that is vitally needed if the station is to double its crew size to six later this year and increase its science output. The shuttle crew also helped repair the space station?s water recycling system, which converts astronaut urine and sweat back into pure drinking water to support larger crews.

?Deploying the solar arrays was one of the high points of this flight,? mission specialist John Phillips told students in Hawaii Thursday. ?We?re all really proud to bring that extra power to the station.?

Phillips and his crewmates were speaking with students from Punahou School in Honolulu, President Barack Obama's high school alma mater, just days after receiving a phone call from the president himself praising their mission.

Set to return to Earth aboard Discovery with Archambault and Phillips are shuttle pilot Dominic ?Tony? Antonelli and mission specialists Joseph Acaba, Steven Swanson, Richard Arnold II and Sandra Magnus. Acaba and Arnold are former schoolteachers and making their first spaceflight along with Antonelli.

Magnus is retuning home after spending 134 days in space. She arrived at the outpost last November and was replaced by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata - Japan?s first long-term station resident - who launched with Discovery?s crew on March 15.

?It was a lot of fun on the space station,? Magnus told Mission Control this week. ?A truly unique adventure.?

Magnus told reporters she will miss the views from space - especially the colors of the waters around the Caribbean - but is looking forward to being outside for the first time in months, and perhaps a chocolate milkshake, some sushi and a cheesy pizza.

About five months? worth of experiment samples, including blood, biological samples in a freezer and cold storage bags, as well as four of five liters of recycled water from the station?s urine recycler, are also packed aboard Discovery.

The shuttle astronauts left the space station on Wednesday to clear the way for a new crew and space tourist Charles Simonyi, who arrived at the station at 9:06 a.m. EDT (1306 GMT) today.

?This is the calm before the storm,? station commander Michael Fincke told Mission Control Friday. ?The hurricane is coming, the next crew?s on its way.?

SPACE.com is providing continuous coverage of Discovery?s STS-119 mission with reporter Clara Moskowitz and senior editor Tariq Malik in New York. Click here for mission updates and SPACE.com's live NASA TV video feed. LIVE landing coverage begins at 10:00 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT).

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