Shuttle lands after taxing trip

The space shuttle Discovery landed Wednesday at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, successfully concluding a two-week mission to the International Space Station that featured some of the most challenging tasks in the 26-year history of the shuttle program.

Discovery, with commander Pamela A. Melroy at the controls, touched down at 10:01 a.m. PST, after executing a series of sweeping turns to bleed off the shuttle’s orbital speed of about 18,000 mph.

“The whole agency had to pull together for this particular mission,” Melroy said after exiting the shuttle.

During its 15-day mission, Discovery’s seven-person crew installed a new module on the space station, which will connect Japanese and European laboratories to be delivered on future shuttle missions.

Astronaut Scott E. Parazynski perched on the end of a robotic arm in a hastily organized spacewalk to repair a tangled solar wing.

“The only thing we can talk about here is how great this mission has been,” NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin said at a briefing following the landing.

Griffin said the difficulties overcome by Discovery’s crew, working closely with engineers on the ground, were a reminder that building the space station was unlike anything ever tried.

He said that includes NASA’s Apollo missions, which ultimately put astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin on the moon in 1969.

“I think building the space station is far more difficult and more complex than executing Apollo,” Griffin said.

Melroy and her crew knew before launch that they were in for a difficult time. Five spacewalks were planned, the most for a shuttle mission docked at the space station.

The new module, called Harmony, is the first pressurized compartment to be added to the space station since the Quest airlock was attached in 2001. Installation of the 16-ton, 23-by-14-foot module went smoothly.

Problems developed during a later spacewalk, when a set of solar arrays were moved to the port side of the station. As the arrays were unfolding at their new position, a guide wire became tangled, tearing a solar panel.

The crew halted the deployment while NASA considered a solution. The snare was compounded by sticking on the rotary joint that enables the starboard arrays to track the sun as the station orbits 248 miles above Earth. The difficulty caused the three-person station crew to park the array in place, cutting the available power.

NASA said the station could function with both problems, but future power needs of new laboratories made it essential to fix at least one. Managers decided to send Parazynski out in space with a hockey stick-shaped tool to untangle the port array.

Parazynski was positioned on the end of the shuttle’s robotic arm, which was in turn attached to a robotic arm from the station. For Parazynski, it was like standing at the top of a long extension ladder.

“I had more butterflies than I normally do before a spacewalk, Parazynski, a mountain climber in his spare time, said during a crew news conference several hours after the landing.

He said he was taken aback by warnings to watch out for electrical sparking on the damaged array.

The repair was successful, and the array deployed smoothly. Fixing the rotating joint will be left to a future mission.

Melroy called the installation of Harmony, the relocation of the solar arrays and the repair operation a “triple home run.”

“It’s an amazing thing to watch a large organization like NASA pivot and change plans,” she said. “I don’t think anybody at Johnson Space Center slept for two or three days.”

Discovery’s crew departed the space station Monday in a tearful ceremony. And they discovered that, like many other bodily functions, tears don’t behave the way they do on Earth.

They don’t run down the cheek, Melroy said. “They stay there until you wipe them away.”

NASA said Discovery’s flight was one of the cleanest since the shuttle fleet returned to service after the 2003 Columbia disaster.

“Discovery looks outstanding on the runway,” launch director Mike Leinbach said. “There are a very small number of dings on the tile.”

Dings are caused by foam falling off the external fuel tank and hitting the shuttle during launch. In the last four years, NASA has redesigned the external fuel tank several times to reduce foam loss.

The success of Discovery’s mission increased NASA’s confidence that it would be able to launch a fourth shuttle this year. Atlantis is scheduled to lift off as early as Dec. 6.

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john.johnson@latimes.com