Discovery Coming Home

Hopefully the return of the space shuttle Discovery crew will go smoothly when they land on Saturday, June 14 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 11:15 a.m. EDT. This will have been a successful 14-day flight to the International Space Station, in which the crew delivered two new sections of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory to the station. During three spacewalks, the crew installed the Japanese Pressurized Module, or JPM, and Kibo’s robotic arm system. Kibo’s logistics module, which had been attached temporarily to the Harmony node during the STS-123 mission in March, was attached to the JPM. Then there’s the toilet that had its challenges as well. The flight also delivered station resident Greg Chamitoff to the outpost. Discovery will return with Garrett Reisman, who spent three months aboard the complex. After touchdown, the astronauts will undergo physical examinations and meet with their families. The STS-124 crew is expected to hold a news conference at 4:15 p.m. Saturday. Both news events will be broadcast live on NASA Television—Cape Canaveral, Florida