Discovery touches down safely

— -- After one of the most harrowing space shuttle missions in recent memory, shuttle Discovery made a picture-perfect return to Earth Wednesday under the control of only the second woman to land the spacecraft.

"Houston, Discovery, wheels stop," called Discovery's commander Pamela Melroy after bringing the shuttle to a halt on Cape Canaveral's concrete runway at 1:01 p.m. ET.

"Copy, wheels stop, congratulations on a tremendous mission and a great landing, Pam," said astronaut Terry Virts from Mission Control in Houston.

The spacecraft made a now-rare trip above the U.S. heartland to reach its landing strip on the Florida coast. Most shuttles approach Florida on a path that takes them over Central America and the Caribbean Sea rather than gliding over the continental United States, because of concerns that debris from a crumbling shuttle could cause casualties on the ground.

After firing its engines at 11:59 p.m. to slow its orbit, Discovery made a tightly controlled fall from space and into the atmosphere. The shuttle flashed across the Pacific Ocean and crossed land at the western coast of Canada. It then soared across the northern Rocky Mountains and passed over Rapid City, S.D., Kansas City, Mo., Memphis, Birmingham, Ala., and Columbus, Ga., before making its trademark dive at the runway.

The spacecraft's unusual heartland tour was the result of a request by Melroy. Landing was originally scheduled to take place before dawn, but Melroy asked for a mid-afternoon slot so her crew could shift their sleep patterns more easily. The change in touchdown time meant that the shuttle had to soar across the United States from coast to coast, a trajectory NASA has avoided since the breakup of shuttle Columbia showered debris on Texas in 2003.

The shift to a daylight landing also allowed for better visibility, making the challenging task of landing Discovery slightly easier for Melroy. Only one other woman has landed the shuttle. Astronaut Eileen Collins made the first shuttle landing by a woman in 1998 and landed the spacecraft again in 2005 before retiring from NASA.