Discovery Space Shuttle Takes Scenic Route Before Landing

HOUSTON, April 18, 2010 — -- Heads-up! A spectacular site will be streaking overhead if you are lucky enough to live along the landing path planned for the space shuttle Discovery.

Observers will have a rare opportunity to see and hear the space shuttle as it streaks home from low Earth orbit to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Monday morning.

The shuttle will cross North America near Vancouver, British Columbia, then will pass over Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, then Jacksonville Fla., before banking south to the shuttle landing field.

This landing pattern is called a descending node -- normally space shuttles returning from the space station approach from the southwest -- which is an ascending node. But the circumstances of this mission worked in favor of the descending node. By landing in a descending pattern, the crew gets more time in space, which adds up to about 30 hours to get more done during a mission.

Who will be able to see it? From British Columbia to Tennessee along the landing track, from Tennessee to Florida, there will be too much daylight.

What time will this happen: Discovery will hit British Columbia, Canada, at an altitude of 243,00 feet at about 8:20 ET. It then will cross the U.S. in less than 30 minutes, landing at 8:48 ET.

What will you see? An orange streak with a bright white plasma trail.

What will you hear? A double sonic boom about a minute and a half after the shuttle passes overhead.

Bryan Lunney, the flight director in charge of the landing, says the darker it is, the better the chances of seeing the plasma trail.

"The orbiter will be streaking by from northwest to southeast. People who don't know what they are looking at will think they are looking at a meteor," says one observer who has seen a shuttle cross overhead.

This mission, designated STS 131, is the fourth to last scheduled mission. Cmder. Alan Poindexter headed the crew of seven for a 10-day mission to supply and maintain the International Space Station. He says it's a demanding schedule, with the crew working 18 hours a day for two weeks.

This descending landing, Poindexter says, lets the crew get more sleep.