If ever there's been a sigh of relief at the end of a shuttle mission, and maybe a few champagne corks popping, this one deserves it. Discovery landed in Florida today at 1:01 PM Eastern Time, with no further mishaps reported.
The mission had begun with questions about the shuttle's safety preparations, and some safety experts saying it shouldn't be flown at all.
Once reaching the International Space Station, spacewalking astronauts found evidence that one of the station's solar panel system's joints wasn't functioning correctly, made plans to fix it, and then were confronted with a completely separate tear in the solar array requiring a dangerous spacewalk to repair.
All in all, an extraordinarily successful 120th shuttle mission. But here's hoping there won't be many more like it.
Discovery Lands in Florida [NASA]
(Image: The Discovery shuttle lands today at Kennedy Space Center. Credit: NASA)
