Shuttle landing caps a ‘great mission’

Focus on safety and the station
The agenda for Discovery's 13-day flight was so full that the astronauts found it hard to stop working, even on their designated day off. "I actually ordered the crew that they were not allowed to work," Lindsey told reporters Sunday.

This was Lindsey's fourth spaceflight, and on Monday he said "this was the toughest time line I've ever had." He wondered whether some of the tasks on that time line, such as the detailed inspection conducted after Discovery left the space station, were "worth the risk for the data you get, and we're going to answer those questions."

"We couldn't have fit anything more in, I can tell you that," Lindsey said. "I wouldn't want to add anything, but I think we were successful at what we did."

Among the highlights:

• Discovery used a lower-impact flight profile for its ascent, and four rounds of in-flight inspections showed there was minimal loss of foam insulation from the shuttle's external fuel tank. Foam debris has been a key focus of NASA's safety improvements, because the damage done by such debris is thought to have caused the Columbia tragedy. Significant foam loss was also seen during Discovery's flight last summer — which led to a second redesign of the fuel tank.
• Spacewalkers tested new techniques for inspecting the shuttle and fixing damage if necessary. One technique involves standing on a 50-foot (15-meter) extension boom attached to the shuttle's 50-foot robotic arm, to get to hard-to-reach spots on the shuttle's underbelly. The astronauts also tested a puttylike sealant that could be used to patch cracks or small holes in the shuttle's reinforced carbon panels.
• Discovery's crew delivered more than two tons of supplies to the space station, ranging from food and other basics to a new lab freezer and exercise bike. They are bringing back almost as much tonnage of old equipment and trash.
• Discovery also dropped off German astronaut Thomas Reiter for a six-month stay aboard the station. Reiter is the first long-term station resident who is neither American nor Russian, and his presence brings the station's crew complement to three for the first time in three years.
• Discovery's spacewalkers made repairs to the cable reels on a space station rail car system that had to be fixed before the resumption of assembly. They also installed a spare part for the station's cooling system.

The flight featured moments of levity as well. During one of the inspections, an imager on the extension boom turned up evidence of whitish streaks on the shuttle's panels and nose cap — and mission managers determined that the streaks were actually bird droppings deposited before flight. After the landing, Discovery astronaut Mike Fossum reported that the droppings were still there. "They made it home, a bit charred," he said.

Astronaut Piers Sellers, meanwhile, had to weather some jibes over a spatula he lost during the mission's third and final spacewalk. NASA said the wayward spatula posed no threat to the shuttle, but Sellers admitted Monday that it was "a bad moment, because it was my favorite spatula ... don't tell the other spatulas."

When asked to name his most satisfying moment of the mission, Sellers said it was at the very end, when "we all looked at each other — at 'wheels stop,' frankly — and said, 'We're done. ... We did it.'"

What lies ahead
The shuttle Atlantis is already being prepared for next month's mission, which involves the installation of a truss segment and additional power-generating solar arrays on the international space station. And in the next week, NASA will start getting Discovery back in shape for its own next mission in mid-December.

"We're in a turnaround process now that we haven't been in for three and a half years, so that feels good," launch manager Mike Leinbach told reporters.

At the same time, NASA officials said the flights ahead represented the most complex phase of the station assembly process. "We can't afford to mess up," Griffin said.

A successful end to Discovery's mission not only opens the way for the resumption of space station construction, but also makes a final mission to the Hubble Space Telescope more likely. Informally, NASA already has begun planning for such a servicing mission in 2008, but Griffin said he would hold off on deciding whether or not to add the mission to the formal schedule until later — "certainly not later than this fall."

"No one wants to do a Hubble flight more than I," he said, "but we do not want to get ahead of ourselves. We want to go about things in the right way."

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