Cape Canaveral: Shuttle Discovery`s
astronauts aimed for a Thursday evening landing to wrap up their
successful space station delivery mission, but late summer
storms threatened to keep them up an extra day or two.
Mission Control said yesterday that "the weather will
pose a challenge" for bringing Discovery home. The forecast
called for a chance of thunderstorms. Conditions were expected
to worsen on Friday and remain poor Saturday.
"The weather in Florida this time of year is always a
little iffy," Discovery`s commander, Rick Sturckow, said from
orbit. "If things aren`t good, the worst that can come out of
it is that we have another day in space, which is a great
deal."
In orbit since Aug 29, Discovery has enough supplies to
last until Sunday. If the shuttle cannot return to Florida
today, NASA will consider landing it in California, but not
until Friday at the earliest.
Astronaut Timothy Kopra is headed home after nearly two
months at the international space station. He said the flight
wasn`t too long by any stretch. He should have spent an extra
month at the outpost, but his ride up ended up being delayed
because of shuttle problems.
Buzz Lightyear, by comparison, spent 15 months aboard the
space station.
Bureau Report
