NASA Hopes for Tuesday Landing of Shuttle Discovery
VOA News 19 April 2010
The space shuttle Discovery is to spend another day in orbit, as cloudy weather has forced NASA to abandon Monday's landing attempt.
The U.S. space agency says it hopes the shuttle can land early Tuesday. NASA skipped both landing opportunities Monday because of cloudy conditions at the Kennedy Space Center in the southeastern state of Florida.
During Discovery's two-week mission, crew members completed three space walks, in which they installed a new ammonia tank for the station's cooling systems, replaced a gyroscope and retrieved a Japanese experiment from the station's exterior.
The shuttle also delivered new crew sleeping quarters and four experiment racks.
NASA had extended Discovery's mission by a day to allow time to review a routine inspection of the shuttle's heat shields.
Only three more shuttle flights remain before NASA retires its fleet before the end of this year.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.
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