Is the space shuttle cleared for landing?”
June 14, 2008 7:13 AM PDT Space shuttle cleared for landing Update 8:15 a.m. PDT: Discovery has landed. At precisely 11:15 and 19 seconds a.m. EDT Saturday, the space shuttle completed its 5.7 million mile journey by touching down here. Stay tuned for a story and photos. KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.–“Discovery, you are go for deorbit burn.” With those words, spoken at 9:48 a.m. EDT by someone at mission control in Houston and heard here over a loudspeaker system, we all got the good word that Space Shuttle Discovery, which has been on a two-week mission to the International Space Station, has gotten clearance to land. This is good news because there’s a whole bunch of media gathered here, where I’ve come on Road Trip 2008, expressly for the purpose of documenting the shuttle’s landing. It’s safe to say there would have been a lot of grumbling if the landing had been scrubbed, as was certainly a possibility if the weather here had been less than ideal. But a few scattered clouds aside, i
It’s landing day for space shuttle Discovery, but thunderstorms in Florida may keep the spacecraft and its astronaut crew in orbit an extra day. Discovery and its crew of seven astronauts are due to land at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida Thursday evening at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT) to wrap up a 13-day cargo run to the International Space Station. Thunderstorms may creep too close to the shuttle’s runway to allow a landing on one of two opportunities today, and the Florida weather is expected to get worse Friday, Mission Control said. “The weather in Florida this time of year is always iffy,” Discovery’s commander Rick Sturckow said from space Wednesday. “If things aren’t good, the worst that can come out of it is we’ll have another day in space, which is a great deal.” Earlier today, Discovery had to fire its engines to dodge what Mission Control called “mystery orbital debris,” a piece of space junk that was expected to fly too close to the shuttle for comfort. The debri
