CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. (AP) - Space shuttle Discovery zoomed back to Earth for the last time Wednesday to wrap up a long flying career.
The world’s most-traveled spaceship was due to return to Earth _ for the last time ever _ three minutes before noon.
The crew of six fired the braking rockets in late morning, putting Discovery on track for a Florida touchdown. It was Discovery’s final fiery ride through the atmosphere.
NASA’s oldest shuttle has flown 39 missions over nearly 27 years. It’s being retired after this voyage.
Discovery is headed back to Earth from the International Space Station. The astronauts delivered and installed a new storage compartment, complete with a humanoid robot.
The mission added 13 days to Discovery’s lifetime total of 365 days in space. Its total mileage is 148 million miles.
Once back at Kennedy Space Center, Discovery will be decommissioned over the next several months and sent to the Smithsonian Institution for display. Shuttles Endeavour and then Atlantis will fly once more each in the next few months. Then they, too, will be retired.
Endeavour is scheduled to blast off in less than six weeks. NASA planned to move it out to the launch pad Wednesday night but postponed the move until Thursday because bad weather was expected.
NASA is under presidential direction to spread its wings beyond low-Earth orbit. The goal is to send astronauts to an asteroid and then Mars in the decades ahead. There is not enough money for NASA to achieve that and maintain the shuttle program at the same time. As a result, the shuttles will stop flying this summer after 30 years.
American astronauts will keep hitching rides to the space station on Russian Soyuz capsules, until private companies are able to provide taxi service to and from orbit. NASA expects to get another nine years out of the space station.
___
Online:
NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/shuttle
Please read our comment policy before commenting.