Discovery Lands for Final Time
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At 11:57 a.m. EST, space shuttle Discovery landed for the final time at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center after 202 orbits around Earth and a journey of 5,304,140 miles on STS-133.
Discovery’s main gear touched down at 11:57:17 a.m. followed by the nose gear at 11:57:28 and wheels stop at 11:58:14 a.m. At wheels stop, the mission elapsed time was 12 days, 19 hours, four minutes and 50 seconds.
A post-landing news conference with managers at Kennedy is expected no earlier than 2 p.m. on NASA TV and http://www.nasa.gov/ntv. The participants will be Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations, Mike Moses, space shuttle launch integration manager, and Mike Leinbach, space shuttle launch director.
STS-133 was the 39th and final flight for Discovery, which spent 365 days in space, orbited Earth 5,830 times and traveled 148,221,675 miles.
During space shuttle Discovery’s final spaceflight, the STS-133 crew members delivered important spare parts to the International Space Station along with the Express Logistics Carrier-4.
Steve Bowen replaced Tim Kopra as Mission Specialist 2 following a bicycle injury on Jan. 15 that prohibited Kopra from supporting the launch window. Bowen last flew on Atlantis in May 2010 as part of the STS-132 crew. Flying on the STS-133 mission makes Bowen the first astronaut ever to fly on consecutive missions.
Image above: Space shuttle Discovery lands at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Image credit: NASA TV
Source:NASA Space Shuttle Mission Page
Ray Sanders is a Sci-Fi geek, astronomer and blogger. Currently researching variable stars at Arizona State University, he writes for Universe Today, The Planetary Society blog, and his own blog, Dear Astronomer
2012-12-04 08:05:49
Source: http://www.dearastronomer.com/2011/03/09/discovery-lands-for-final-time/
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