The United States space shuttle Atlantis returned safely to its Florida home port on Thursday, capping a successful mission to resume International Space Station construction after the 2003 Columbia accident.
After 12 days in space, including six at the half-built $100-billion space station, Atlantis dropped from its orbital perch into Earth’s atmosphere, shedding speed as it soared through pre-dawn skies over the Pacific Ocean, Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico before reaching Florida’s west coast.
Gliding across the state, commander Brent Jett circled Atlantis high over the Kennedy Space Centre, lining up his ship to touch down on a 4,8km-long, canal-lined runway.
Double sonic booms rang out over central Florida as the shuttle slipped below the speed of sound for the first time since it blasted off on September 9 after two weeks of delays.
The mission marked Nasa’s re-entry into the space-station construction business — a task put on hold for nearly four years for safety upgrades after the Columbia accident — and boosted confidence the massive construction project can be completed by 2010, when the shuttle fleet is to be retired.
”The space station’s half built. We have half to go,” Nasa administrator Michael Griffin said. ”When we’re all done it will weigh nearly a million pounds, for humanity’s first really long-term outpost in space. We’re halfway there but I think we’re going to make it.”
Shuttle commander Brent Jett and his five crewmates — pilot Chris Ferguson, flight engineer Dan Burbank, Canada’s Steve MacLean, Joe Tanner and Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper — delivered and installed a $372-million solar power system during a complex series of robotic manoeuvres and three spacewalks. — Reuters