This story
was updated at 5:43 p.m. EDT (2143 GMT).
CAPE
CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Seven NASA astronauts and the shuttle Atlantis returned
safely to Earth Friday after a successful mission to boost the power grid
aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
After one delayed attempt, Atlantis touched down in the
California desert for a 3:49:38 p.m. EDT (1949:38 GMT) landing on a backup
runway at Edwards Air Force Base.
“It’s
great to be back on planet Earth right now,” Atlantis shuttle commander
Rick Sturckow said after landing.
Sturckow and
his STS-117 crewmates delivered a $367.3 million pair of trusses and new solar arrays to the space station’s
starboard side and stowed away an older solar wing atop the outpost during
their 14-day mission.
“You got
to love that symmetrical space station,” pilot Lee Archambault said
during the flight, which evened out the station’s previous off-kilter profile.
The astronauts
also aided in the recovery of critical Russian computer systems aboard the ISS and
swapped out one of the orbital laboratory’s three-person Expedition 15
crew. Their four spacewalks included the repair of a torn thermal blanket -
using surgical staples - on Atlantis’ left aft engine pod.
Atlantis’
landing ended a more than 5.7 million-mile (9.2 million-kilometer) trip and 219
orbits around Earth for its STS-117 crew. The shuttle’s return came one day
late after persistent rain showers prevented Florida landings on Thursday and
earlier today.
Back
on Earth
Returning to
Earth aboard Atlantis with Sturckow were shuttle pilot Lee Archambault and
mission specialists Patrick Forrester, Steven Swanson, James Reilly II, Danny
Olivas and Sunita
Williams, a former Expedition 15 flight engineer.
Williams spent
just over 194 days in space - a world record for a female astronaut - and turned her ISS
post over to fellow NASA spaceflyer
Clayton Anderson during the STS-117 mission.
“I hope
I can carry on and do half as well as she did on orbit,” said Anderson, who
is due to return to Earth in October, before Williams left the station.
After more
than six months in space, Williams said she’d miss the station and her
Expedition 15 crewmates - commander
Fyodor Yurchikhin
and flight engineer Oleg Kotov
- but was ready to return to her family and beloved dog Gorby.
“I’m
looking forward to going to the beach and hopefully taking a walk with my
husband and my dog,” Williams told reporters before landing. “And I
can’t wait for a big piece of pizza.”
During her
mission, Williams ran the Boston Marathon from orbit and exercised regularly in
order to cope with her return to Earth’s gravity today. She underwent an extra series of medical checkups after landing because of her long-duration flight, NASA said.
“I’ve
worked as hard as I think anybody can work up here physically,” Williams
said before leaving the station. “So, we’ll just see how it
goes.”
Today’s landing marked the 12th at Edwards Air Force Base for Atlantis
and the spacecraft’s first since NASA’s STS-98 mission in 2001,
when the orbiter delivered the U.S. Destiny module to the ISS. It is
NASA’s 51st shuttle mission to land at Edwards Air Force Base.
The last
shuttle to use the backup runway was Discovery, which touched down in August
2005.
“It’s
a great place to land the shuttle,” Archambault said after landing.
More
challenges ahead
The successful
flight of Atlantis’ STS-117 crew primed the space station’s power
grid to support the addition of NASA’s new connecting node Harmony and
the European Space Agency’s Columbus laboratory, both of which are slated
to launch later this year.
In addition to
installing the new Starboard 3/Starboard 4 (S3/S4) trusses, STS-117 spacewalkers
also furled the sole remaining solar array extending from the station’s
mast-like Port 6 (P6) truss. Stowing that array brought P6 one step closer
towards its eventual relocation to the station’s port-most end on a later
shuttle flight, NASA said.
“It
truly is the first really permanent international human outpost in
space,” Reilly told reporters Wednesday of the station. “It’s
our first real step off the planet."
Michael Suffredini,
NASA’s ISS program manager, said the mission also completed the delivery
and activation of intricate joints to rotate the station’s wing-like
starboard and port solar arrays. With the installation of the S3 segment, the
Mobile Transporter railway that allows the station’s robotic arm to
traverse the length of the orbital laboratory’s metallic backbone-like
main truss is also complete, he added.
“We do
have a lot of assembly left,” Suffredini said, adding that many the tasks ahead have
been performed before. “We [are] probably, from a risk perspective, over
60 percent past the point where I think we’ve got really new things to
learn.”
NASA plans at
least 12 more shuttle missions to the ISS to complete the orbital
laboratory’s assembly, with two additional flights possible to deliver
cargo, equipment and other logistics. One non-ISS bound shuttle flight, set
to launch in September 2008, is planned to overhaul the Hubble Space
Telescope.
“It took
a lot of work to get this equipment up here,” said Sturckow, who also on
NASA’s first shuttle flight for ISS construction. “It kind of takes
your breath away to think about how hard it is to do all this.”
Thursday’s
landing completed NASA’s 118th shuttle mission - the 21st to the ISS -
and the 28th spaceflight for Atlantis itself. The shuttle will now be prepared
for a jumbo jet ferry flight from California to KSC, a trip that typically
takes between seven to 10 days and costs about $1.7 million, NASA officials said.
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