Safe on Earth

Space shuttle Atlantis returns home

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The space shuttle Atlantis is towed to the Orbiter Processing Facility after landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on September 21, 2006. (Photo: Thom Baur/Reuters)

By Ezra Billinkoff

September 21, 2006

The space shuttle Atlantis safely landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, early Thursday morning. The crew wore bright smiles as they stepped out of the spacecraft. Six astronauts—five Americans and one Canadian—had successfully completed a 12-day mission. While in space, they made major additions to the International Space Station, floating in orbit above the Earth.

“It’s a really beautiful day in Florida; a great way to end a mission,” said Brent Jett, the commander of the mission. “It was a pretty tough few days for us, a lot of hard work, a great team effort to get the station assembly restarted on a good note.”

Atlantis was supposed to return on Wednesday, but mission directors decided to wait an extra day because of safety concerns.

Earlier in the week, the astronauts and the scientists monitoring their mission spotted pieces of debris floating below the space shuttle. The astronauts took extra time to make sure that the pieces had not harmed the shuttle in any way. The Atlantis crew received the go-ahead, but many experts were still nervous about Thursday’s landing.

The space mission, known as the STS-115 mission, was the first time that NASA had done construction on the International Space Station since the space shuttle Columbia tragedy in 2003. The flight was only the third by a U.S. space shuttle since Columbia exploded on its re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.

Mission Accomplished

“This is one of the most complex missions that has ever been flown in space,” said shuttle program manager Wayne Hale.

The six astronauts performed three spacewalks during the mission. They also successfully attached a 17 1/2-ton (35,000-pound) wing onto the space station that carries solar panels. The panels will allow the space station to build up power from the sun.

NASA has scheduled 15 shuttle flights as part of a plan to complete construction on the International Space Station by 2010. The space laboratory is only partially built. The space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to launch in December. Preparations are already under way to make sure the spacecraft is ready to go.

“We are rebuilding the kind of momentum that we have had in the past and that we need if we’re going to finish the space station,” said Michael Griffin, the NASA Administrator.

 

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