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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