Discovery Lands Safely at the KSC

After about two days spent on route, during which it flew across the continental United States, the space shuttle Discovery finally reached its home port at the Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 12:05 pm EDT (1605 GMT) on Monday, September 21st. It was delivered by its Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) modified Boeing 747 jumbo jet, which is especially equipped to ferry this class of spacecraft over long distances. Discovery was delivered back home from the Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB), in California, where it was forced to land after returning from its STS-128 mission.

The shuttle spent 14 days in space, of which nine docked to the International Space Station (ISS). It delivered new supplies and scientific equipment and experiments to the orbital facility, as well as Expedition 20's new flight engineer, Nicole Stott. She replaced NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra, who flew to orbit aboard Endeavor, during STS-127. The Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT), named after comedian Stephen Colbert, was also delivered to the outpost. A large ammonia tank affixed to the outer wall of the ISS was, additionally, replaced with a new one.

On its return home, the shuttle was plagued by misfortune. Its landing strip at the KSC, which is where shuttles normally land when they return to Earth, was battered by rain, and thunderstorms formed within the safe distance around the space center. After a number of failed attempts at landing, the shuttle was eventually redirected by the Mission Control to the EAFB, in California, where it landed at 8:53 pm EDT, on September 11th. For its return flight, it underwent preparations at the Dryden Flight Research Center, located inside the EAFB.

The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, one of NASA's two modified Boeing 747s, started flying Discovery back home early on Sunday, in a 2,500-mile (4,023-kilometer) journey that lasted about two days. A total of three refueling stops were made along the way, at the Rick Husband International Airport, in Amarillo, Texas, the Ft. Worth Naval Air Station, in Texas, and the Barksdale Air Force Base (BAFB), in Shreveport, Louisiana. According to one of the pilots that flew the SCA, the conditions he experienced carrying the shuttle from Louisiana to Florida were the most challenging in the over ten flights he made carrying shuttles. A trip from California to Florida costs about $1.8 million.