The Space Shuttle Discovery returned safely to Earth today after completing a 15-day resupply mission to the International Space Station, the 131st trip of the shuttle program, according to Reuters. Discovery and its seven astronauts glided to a smooth landing at 9:08 a.m. EDT (1308 GMT) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The shuttle and crew returned from a 10-day stay at the space station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations that has been under construction since 1998. Discovery's commander Alan Poindexter and pilot Jim Dutton fired the shuttle's braking rockets at 8:02 a.m. EDT (1202 GMT) while over the Indian Ocean to leave orbit and head for the spacecraft's home base in Florida. Bad weather had delayed a scheduled return on Monday, further extending a mission that had already been lengthened by a day so the astronauts could use the orbiting space station's communications system to relay heat shield inspection results. NASA discovered the shuttle's Ku-band communications antenna was broken shortly after Discovery's April 5 launch, obliging the crew to use the station's system. The inspection procedure was implemented after the 2003 Columbia disaster, blamed on a heat shield breach. Discovery had delivered to the space station a cargo pod, about the size of a small bus, filled with equipment and experiment racks, a fourth U.S. sleeping berth, a darkroom for the station's U.S. laboratory module and other supplies. The returning Italian-built cargo pod was packed with old equipment and items no longer needed on the station. The shuttle also hauled home a spent tank of ammonia coolant, which will be refurbished and returned to the station as a spare. A new ammonia tank was installed during three spacewalks by Discovery astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Clay Anderson, but a problem with a valve prevented NASA from activating the coolant system as planned. -- SPA
