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Space Shuttle 'Discovery' Lands at Kennedy Space Center


The U.S. space shuttle Discovery has landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, after an earlier attempt to land the craft was waved off because of bad weather.

NASA had hoped to land Discovery just after dawn Tuesday, but had to try again because of rain. Two landing attempts in Florida Monday also were canceled.

If the weather had remained poor, NASA would have directed Discovery to land at Edwards Air Force Base in California, where weather conditions are excellent.

Discovery was on a 15-day resupply mission to the International Space Station.

During that mission, the crew completed three spacewalks, 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 sleeping quarters for the crew and four experiment racks.

NASA extended Discovery's mission by a day to allow time to review a routine inspection of the shuttle's heat shields.

Three more shuttle flights remain before NASA retires its fleet later this year.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

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