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Space Shuttle to Attempt Landing Tuesday


Astronauts hope to land the space shuttle Discovery Tuesday, after cloudy weather forced NASA to abandon two landing attempts on Monday.

The U.S. space agency says the shuttle is scheduled to land early Tuesday at Kennedy Space Center in the southeastern state of Florida.

NASA says if Discovery is unable to touch down because of poor weather, it may make a second attempt to land at Kennedy or fly to Edwards Air Force Base in the western state of California.

During Discovery's two-week mission, crew members completed three space walks. They installed a new ammonia tank for the cooling systems at the International Space Station, replaced a gyroscope and retrieved a Japanese experiment from the station's exterior.

The shuttle also delivered new crew sleeping quarters 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 AFP, AP and Reuters.

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