Shuttle Lands Safely Despite Weather
Dec. 22, 2006 — -- After hours of doubt and wave-offs because of dicey weather, the astronauts of Space Shuttle Discovery safely touched down at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida just after 5:30 p.m.
"Thank you very much. It's great to be here," said the shuttle's commander, Mark Polansky, just after the orbiter rolled to a stop.
NASA said the mission had lasted 12 days, 20 hours, 45 minutes and 16 seconds from liftoff to rollout on the runway in Florida. Discovery had traveled 5,330,000 miles, orbiting the earth 204 times.
The landing came after a long day of waiting, looking at weather forecasts at three different landing sites, and weighing the risks of coming down despite clouds or winds.
The problem arose because, while the astronauts were busy working on the International Space Station, the weather was closing in on their prime landing sites.
The Kennedy Space Center in Florida was overcast, with rain showers to the south; at Edwards Air Force Base in California, the usual backup site, winds were too high for a landing.
Meanwhile, the astronauts were beginning to run low on liquid oxygen, which supplies the three fuel cells that generate electric power.
NASA made it clear it wanted to bring the shuttle down today. If it hadn't landed by Saturday night, its fuel cells could have shut down. Those fuel cells run everything from lights to steering jets to the air supply.
"When you use up the tank, you use up the tank, and there is only so much you can power down, and we've already done that," NASA's lead flight director Tony Ceccacci said.
So, for safety's sake, NASA did something it preferred to avoid -- it called up a third landing strip at White Sands Space Harbor, N.M.
The weather in New Mexico was good and clear, but cold, and White Sands even hosted a landing once, back in 1982. But it was delayed by a vicious sandstorm, one so bad that NASA has avoided the place ever since.
A landing there would not be difficult -- but getting the shuttle back to Florida afterward would be.
Normally, workers would mount Discovery on the back of a modified 747 jetliner to ferry it back. But a large crane is needed to do the job. It is less than portable.
NASA sent two C-17 cargo planes to White Sands, full of equipment. But the crane is another matter. John Shannon, NASA's deputy shuttle program manager in Houston, estimated that a New Mexico landing would have caused a 45- to 60-day delay in getting the shuttle back to the Kennedy Space Center.
"White Sands is a phenomenal place," said Shannon. "If we land there, we're going to be in great shape, except for the turnaround to return the orbiter to Florida."
Mission managers held off on deciding when and where to land until the last minute.
"You have a go for de-orbit burn," said astronaut Kenneth Ham, the capsule communicator, or "Capcom," at Mission Control in Houston.
"You're a good man, Hawk," came the answer from Polansky.
Only six minutes later, it was time for Discovery to fire its engines to slow itself and begin re-entry.
"There are a lot of things I worry about, but they're things I can control," said Polansky Thursday, in an interview from orbit with ABC News. "The weather is something I just can't control, and we've trained a lot for different landing sites, so we'll be prepared to do that."
"Do you care where you land? Are you concerned at all about that?" I asked.
"These things happen and we just roll with the punches," said Polansky.
Related Stories
ABC News Live