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Thisstory was updated at 9:15 a.m. ET.
CAPECANAVERAL, Fla. � Space convey Discovery landed safely in Florida on Tuesdaymorning to hang up a 15day smoothness mission to the International Space Station(ISS), one of NASAs couple of superfluous convey flights prior to the orbiter fleetretires after this year.&
Shuttlecommander Alan Poindexter guided Discovery to a 9:08 a.m. EDT (1308 GMT)touchdown at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASAs Kennedy Space Center,following a moody route that took the convey over majority of North America beforeavoiding sleet showers descending over majority of executive Florida.&Twin sonicbooms pennyless by the sunrise sky to have known the shuttles homecoming aftera 6 millionmile trip.
Welcomehome! Mission Control radioed Poindexter and his crew. Congratulationsto you and your organisation on an superb mission.
Ridinghome with Poindexter were STS131 commander James Dutton and mission specialistsDorothy Dottie MetcalfLindenburger, Stephanie Wilson, RickMastracchio, Clayton Anderson and Japanese wanderer Naoko Yamazaki. With justthree flights superfluous scheduled for NASAs 30year space convey program,the astronauts on Discoverys mission were the lastsevenmember organisation to fly.
Itwas a good mission, Poindexter told Mission Control. The InternationalSpace Station is stocked up again.
Returningto Earth inside Discoverys load brook was the Leonardo MultiPurposeLogistics Module (MPLM), a load procedure that launched on the convey on Apr 5with scarcely 8 tons of reserve for the station, together with a new organisation sleepingquarters, ammonia coolant tank and 4 examination racks. Leonardo landedpacked with roughly 3 tons of scholarship formula and trash.
Thiswas the last roundtrip for Leonardo to the hire after 6 previousflights. Its subsequent mission, STS133 targeted to launch on Discovery in September, thelast programmed for the convey program,& will see the permanent installationon the ISS as a broom closet and storage space for the crew.
Discoverylanded a day late due to rain, though the lapse to Earth was not influenced atall by the immeasurable ash clouded cover from Icelands Eyjafjallaj�kull volcano.
Theshuttles reentry over North America offering a special yield to skywatchers onEarth, who might have had a possibility to mark the splendid meteorlike strain ofDiscoverys plasma route as it flew from the northwest seashore of the Canada andUnited States to the southeast for the Florida landing. The last time a shuttlemade such an proceed was in 2007.
NASAtypically tries to have space shuttles reenter from the southwest � anapproach that is often over the southern Pacific Ocean, tools of CentralAmerica and the Gulf of Mexico � to equivocate drifting over populated areas given thetragic loss of the convey Columbia, that pennyless detached over Texas duringreentry.
Malfunctionsand gummy bolts
Discovery"sSTS131 mission left the space hire 98 percent finish after 10 days dockedtogether, but was not but the share of teenager snags.&
"Imust say, I"m unequivocally unapproachable of the teams on how well they rubbed and responded toall the adversities we"ve been faced with," pronounced lead space convey flightdirector Richard Jones.
Justafter Discoverys launch, the astronauts andflight controllers detected that the shuttles KuBand communicationsantenna, used to yield radio detector interpretation during the shuttles proceed andseparation from the hire as well as broadcast high bandwidth interpretation � such aslive video � &during the mission, had failed.&
Althoughthe organisation was lerned to recompense for the loss of the system, it resulted in amission prolongation to concede time fortheir customary last investigation of the orbiters feverishness defense to be conductedbefore Discovery undocked from the station.&
Themission roughly gained nonetheless an additional additional day as mission managers debated havingthe convey astronauts have an random spacewalk after they had alreadycompleted the missions 3 programmed outings to reinstate a 1,800pound ammoniacoolant tank. &
Thoughtheir work was hampered multiform times by gummy bolts preventing the removaland designation of the tank assemblies, it was a stranded valve on a nitrogentank that fed in to the deputy ammonia public that gave flightcontrollers reason for concern.&
Atfirst deliberate a some-more dire a complaint that in jeopardy to close down half ofthe stations systems, Mission Control in conclusion motionless to continuetroubleshooting from the ground.&
"Weexpect to regularly strike a little astonishing difficulties, similar to we did on the flightwith the ammonia tank bolts, but the organisation is unequivocally welltrained and we haveoutstanding engineering and operational await on the ground," pronounced Poindexterfrom circuit on Sunday.
Bycontrast, the work inside the hire to move and implement apparatus deliveredby the convey proceeded smoothly. Led by the missions "loadmaster" � or cargochief � Yamazaki, the organisation commissioned a refrigeratorsize rack written toaugment the U.S. Destiny laboratorys sciencequality window with multiplemantended and remotelycontrolled camera mounts, as well as a novel devicedesigned to emanate H2O for the stations organisation utilizing rubbish hydrogen and carbondioxide gases.
Firstsand lasts
Discovery"sSTS131 spaceflight was the 33rd convey mission to the International SpaceStation. It additionally noted Discoverys 38th and nexttolast spaceflight.
Theastronauts set multiform annals during their time aboard the orbitinglaboratory.&
Togetherwith hire organisation part of Tracy Caldwell, STS131 mission specialists StephanieWilson, Dorothy MetcalfLindenburger and Naoko Yamazaki represented the majority women in space at the same time.
Similarly,Yamazaki and associate Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) wanderer SoichiNoguchi, a hire moody engineer, set the jot down for the majority Japanese inspace at one time.
Discoveryalso became the last orbiter approaching to be in space over the anniversary ofthe initial convey flight, STS1.&
Withjust 3 convey missions remaining, the subsequent launch is scheduled forAtlantis in May.&
Bycoincidence, Atlantis is due to hurl out to the strand launch desk desk pad at theKennedy Space Center tonight. That launch desk desk pad mass departure � the last programmed one forAtlantis � was additionally behind a day since of bad weather.
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is on condition that finish coverage of Discoverys STS131 mission to theInternational Space Station with Managing Editor Tariq Malik and Staff WriterClara Moskowitz formed in New York. Click here for convey missionupdates and a couple to NASA TV.
