The Atlantis shuttle roared safely back to Earth Friday, landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California, completing a near-14-day mission to the space station and bringing home Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams, according to dpa. The 9.3-million-kilometre journey included expansion of the International Space Station's electrical power capacity with the installation of another set of solar panels hauled into space by Atlantis. There was silence in the cockpit as US Commander Rick Sturckow and pilot Lee Archambault completed the final moves to bring the aircraft - which functions as a glider in its landing phase - safely to the California desert landing strip, broadcast sound from NASA showed. Williams, who set a record for women in space by spending six months on the International Space Station, said earlier Friday that she was looking forward to feeling "air on my face" and the "sea breeze" while she walked her dog on the beach. The crew of seven had to pass up three landing times windows due to rainy weather on the normal landing strip at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. The rain would have put the overheated and fragile thermal tiles on its skin at risk. Atlantis will have to be transported back to Cape Canaveral for the next launch at a cost of 1.7 million dollars. Atlantis undocked from the International Space Station on Tuesday after conducting four spacewalks to install the new solar panels and repair a damaged heat blanket on the shuttle. The shuttle also delivered Clayton Anderson to serve as the newest ISS crew member, replacing Sunita Williams, who is returning to Earth with Atlantis after setting a record for the longest time in space on one trip by a woman. During the Atlantis mission, a failure of the station's Russian navigation computers was blamed on the connection of the new electricity-generating solar panels. After several days of unease, astronauts repaired the computers, which are vital to controlling the pitch and altitude of the space station. Since the 2003 explosion of the Columbia shuttle on re-entry, NASA has carried out a redesign to prevent shedding of rigid insulation material at launch time from the fuel tanks that can damage the tiles and allow superheated gasses into the aircraft. The disaster put the space construction programme at least two years behind schedule while the redesign and experimental missions were carried out. NASA intends to end the ageing shuttle programme in 2010, when it finishes work on the station.
