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US space shuttle Discovery with its cargo doors open as seen from the International Space Station
US space shuttle Discovery with its cargo doors open as seen from the International Space Station. Photograph: AFP/Getty
US space shuttle Discovery with its cargo doors open as seen from the International Space Station. Photograph: AFP/Getty

Shuttle landing delayed by 24 hours

This article is more than 18 years old

The landing of the Discovery space shuttle has been delayed until tomorrow because of low clouds over the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, Nasa announced today.

The beleaguered shuttle's seven astronauts were originally preparing to land at 09.46 BST today, but bad weather saw that postponed until 11.21.

Nasa then decided to postpone the until tomorrow morning.

The astronauts were waiting for instructions from Mission Control to fire their braking rockets and return to Earth when controllers said low clouds would delay the landing.

The next opportunity for the shuttle to land at Cape Canaveral will be at 10.08 BST tomorrow, and alternative landing sites in California and New Mexico have been made available in case the weather in Florida still makes it dangerous for Discovery to attempt re-entry.

"We will land somewhere on Tuesday," Flight Director LeRoy Cain said.

Mission Control told Discovery commander Eileen Collins: "We've been working this pretty hard, as I'm sure you can imagine from our silence down here.

"We just can't get comfortable with the stability of the situation for this particular opportunity, so we are going to officially wave you off for 24 hours."

Discovery will be the first shuttle to attempt landing since the Columbia disintegrated on re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere two and half years ago, killing all seven astronauts on board.

Its 13-day mission has been fraught with problems since take-off, when a piece of insulating foam broke off the external fuel tank.

Unlike Columbia - which was doomed by a similar problem - Discovery narrowly missed being hit by the large chunk.

However, the wing sensors and extensive video coverage clearly showed material hanging from the shuttle's underside, and Nasa ordered repairs to be carried out on a space walk in an effort to avoid a similar catastrophe.

"There's a lot of things to think about," said Mr Cain, who was also the director for Columbia's fatal flight. "There's a lot of things to worry about, and that's what I get paid to do - to worry - and I do it a lot."

Astronaut Stephen Robinson made the first-ever orbital repairs, gently pulling two strips of thermal tile "grout" away from the shuttle's heat shield.

The effort was a hailed a success, but that did not stop Nasa grounding its shuttle fleet until the problem could be resolved.

Commander Collins admitted that the Columbia disaster was on her mind, but said all her thoughts would be focused solely on landing safely.

"We're all going to be very focused on the job at hand," she said. "It's time to come home and keep working on getting the shuttle better and ready to fly in the future."

Her co-pilot, James Kelly, said he did not have any concerns about re-entry, and said astronauts and flight controllers had never before known so much about the condition of a returning shuttle.

"I guess you almost have to thank the Columbia crew," he said. "The sacrifices they made allowed us to get a lot smarter about it, get a lot of tools on board that we could use to look at the vehicle."

Discovery's seven-man crew achieved their goals of refilling the International Space Station with much-needed supplies, carrying out repairs and unloading some two years worth of rubbish.

The craft left the station in the early hours of Saturday morning, photographing the outpost before making final preparations to head home.

In the final hours before landing, it will slow down from around 17,500mph to 200mph. It will take around 90 minutes to orbit the Earth as two engines are fired off to slow it down.

Onboard computers will guide the shuttle's descent until around five minutes before touchdown, when Commander Collins and Mr Kelly will begin manually controlling the 100-ton glider.

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