Because of the bad weather condition, NASA postponed its plan of landing the shuttle Discovery until Friday at the landing site in Florida, officials said last Thursday.
NASA commentator, Rob Navias said, “Mother Nature had the upper hand today.”
The Discovery’s flight directors attempted twice to bring the shuttle back home from the 13-day mission of re-supplying the International Space Station, but they were deterred by brisk winds and rain showers at the Kennedy Space Center.
As a result, NASA rescheduled the shuttle’s landing to Friday at 2148 GMT (5:48 P.M. EDT), and with plans of back-up landing at 2323 GMT (7:23 P.M.). In addition, NASA will open its back-up landing area located at California’s Edwards Air Force Base.
In the meantime, the shuttle’s crew had to change the Discovery’s orbit earlier on Thursday to steer away from orbital space debris.
It is still unknown to NASA what the space fragments were, but they claimed that it likely came from the space station or the shuttle itself on Saturday when the Discovery’s crew made their last three spacewalks.
Pat Ryan, NASA’s spokesman, said, “Exactly what (the debris) is not known, but it's been moving toward the orbiter so it is a concern.”
In addition, during the nine-day stay of the Discovery at the space station, two other orbital space debris were discovered that made engineers scramble to prepare for avoidance manoeuvres, but such actions were later determined to be unnecessary.
NASA commentator, Rob Navias said, “Mother Nature had the upper hand today.”
The Discovery’s flight directors attempted twice to bring the shuttle back home from the 13-day mission of re-supplying the International Space Station, but they were deterred by brisk winds and rain showers at the Kennedy Space Center.
As a result, NASA rescheduled the shuttle’s landing to Friday at 2148 GMT (5:48 P.M. EDT), and with plans of back-up landing at 2323 GMT (7:23 P.M.). In addition, NASA will open its back-up landing area located at California’s Edwards Air Force Base.
In the meantime, the shuttle’s crew had to change the Discovery’s orbit earlier on Thursday to steer away from orbital space debris.
It is still unknown to NASA what the space fragments were, but they claimed that it likely came from the space station or the shuttle itself on Saturday when the Discovery’s crew made their last three spacewalks.
Pat Ryan, NASA’s spokesman, said, “Exactly what (the debris) is not known, but it's been moving toward the orbiter so it is a concern.”
In addition, during the nine-day stay of the Discovery at the space station, two other orbital space debris were discovered that made engineers scramble to prepare for avoidance manoeuvres, but such actions were later determined to be unnecessary.
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