CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. — Space shuttle Discovery and its crew returned to Earth on Wednesday and concluded a 15-day mission that was among the most challenging – and heroic – in shuttle history.
The shuttle touched down after safely crossing the continent in the first coast-to-coast re-entry since the Columbia disaster almost five years ago.
The seven shuttle astronauts and three residents of the international space station teamed up during the docked mission to save a mangled solar wing. It was one of the most difficult and dangerous repairs ever attempted in orbit, but the future of the station was riding on it and Scott Parazynski pulled it off in a single spacewalk.
“It was an extraordinary feat,” shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said after shaking the astronauts’ hands.
No one had ever ventured so far from the space station before or worked right up against a solar wing coursing with more than 100 volts of electricity and swaying back and forth. Parazynski was on the end of a 90- foot extension beam that barely reached the damaged section.
