Discovery and crew home safely!

Shuttle lands safely.

Despite the problems experienced with the launch, heat shield damage, thermal blanket damage and delays due to bad weather, the American Space Shuttle Discovery has landed safely at Edwards Airforce Base in California.

The re-entry and landing was televised live by most of the world’s media channels. It has been a long time since a shuttle landing has attracted so much attention.

I hope that the problems with the foam lagging on the External Tank can be quickly resolved so that Nasa’s shuttle programme can resume normal service.

I would like to congratulate the crew of Discovery, STS-114 astronauts Steve Robinson, Jim Kelly, Andy Thomas, Wendy Lawrence, Charlie Camarda, Eileen Collins and Soichi Noguchi as well as the vast numbers of people behind the scenes that make manned space flight possible.

Matt

(Images: Nasa)

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