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Space Shuttle Discovery Leaves Space Station

15 July 2006

Vehicle remains in orbit awaiting clearance to land

Washington -- Space shuttle Discovery left the International Space Station (ISS) in final preparation for landing July 17. Before ending its STS-121 mission the shuttle remains in orbit about 70 kilometers from the station waiting for the final results of the inspection of its heat shields, NASA says.

Discovery successfully docked with the space station July 6, delivering supplies and equipment to its 13 crewmembers.  (See related article.)

As Discovery was pulling away from ISS, its crew began scanning parts of its heat shielding, the nose cone and the edges of its wings. Earlier in the mission the crew conducted three spacewalks to perform maintenance on the station and to test heat shield repair techniques.

The U.S. space agency NASA decided to spend a lot of time on shield inspection to avoid another catastrophe like that of Columbia in 2003. As NASA established, launch debris damaged parts of the shielding on Columbia’s wing, leading to its disintegration upon re-entry into the atmosphere.

Deputy shuttle manager John Shannon told the Voice of America that mission controllers also continue to monitor a slow leak of a substance from one of three units that supply power to the shuttle’s landing gear hydraulic system.  According to Shannon, controllers assume the drip is fuel, but do not consider it a threat. If the leak increases, Shannon says, the controllers will activate the unit before re-entry in order to burn up its fuel.

STS-121 was the most photographed mission in the more than 20-year history of the shuttle program. Its elaborate array of photographic equipment included more than 100 high-definition, digital, video and film cameras used to assess the safety of the shuttle.

According to NASA, Discovery is scheduled to touch down at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:14 a.m. July 17.

Additional information is available on NASA’s Web site.

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)