Discovery and its crew swooped through high clouds and landed safely in Florida on Friday, ending the first U.S. space flight with a Russian cosmonaut on board.
"You paved the way for a new era of cooperation in human space flight," Mission Control told the five American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut.Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev became the first Russian to fly on a U.S. shuttle when Discovery blasted off on the science mission Feb. 3.
The crew's homecoming was delayed 11/2 hours, or one orbit, because of thick, low clouds and high wind at the Kennedy Space Center.
NASA considered sending the shuttle to Edwards Air Force Base in California, but officials said the sky cleared enough in Florida to allow for a midafternoon landing.
Despite the unprecedented partnership, the Discovery crew failed to accomplish one of the primary objectives of the mission - releasing a research satellite.
The Wake Shield Facility, a steel disk, was supposed to fly free of Discovery for two days and develop high-grade semiconductor film in its pure-vacuum wake. It was hoped the films eventually could lead to faster computers.
But transmission troubles and, ultimately, a bad guidance system prevented crew members from deploying the satellite. Instead, it developed the film while dangling on the end of Discovery's robot arm.
Within minutes of the shuttle's 2:19 p.m. touchdown, officials at the Russian control center for the Mir space station were on the phone to Mission Control, congratulating their American counterparts on Discovery's return.
The eight-day shuttle trip boosted Krikalev's time in space to 471 days, almost all of it aboard Mir. But he still lags in second place behind world champ Musa Manarov, a Russian cosmonaut who's spent 541 days in space.
The mission made history because of Krikalev's presence. Never before had a Russian been launched on a U.S. spacecraft or landed in one.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Glue used on engines
A California company used super-strength glue for up to six years to make unauthorized repairs on space shuttle engines, a NASA official said Friday.
The dabs of glue, used to fix a pump in main engines, did not pose a hazard, said Boyce Mix, deputy manager for the shuttle main engine program at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
He said he was not sure whether the glue, the kind sold at most model shops, was used on shuttle Discovery, which returned to Earth on Friday from an eight-day science mission.