NASA STS-133 Report #27 12:45 p.m. CST Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas
HOUSTON – Discovery made its last landing this morning at Kennedy Space Center in Florida wrapping up a successful flight to the International Space Station and a 39-mission history covering 148.2 million miles during 365 days in space.
Discovery for the final time, wheels stop, said Commander Steve Lindsey.
A great job by you and your crew, said capcom and fellow astronaut Charlie Hobaugh. That was an awesome docked mission you all had.
Lindsey thanked flight controller teams, the station crew and the team at Kennedy for giving them a perfect vehicle from start to finish.
The landing, like the rest of the mission, was virtually flawless. Discovery’s wheels touched down on the concrete runway at 10:57 a.m. CST., after a flight of 12 days, 19 hours and four minutes and 5,304,140 miles in 202 orbits.
Lindsey, Pilot Eric Boe and Mission Specialists Alvin Drew, Steve Bowen, Michael Barratt and Nicole Stott delivered a new module and an external stowage platform to the station as well as equipment and supplies. During Discovery’s almost nine days at the station, Bowen and Drew did two spacewalks for maintenance work and installation of new components.
Discovery’s visit to the station was extended by two days so its crew could help outfit the Permanent Multipurpose Module Leonardo that it delivered. Leonardo had visited the station seven times before as a cargo carrier before being refurbished to serve as a permanent 2,472-cubic-foot addition to the orbiting laboratory. Among the 6,000 pounds of Leonardo cargo was Robonaut 2, a human upper torso-like robot that could be a precursor of devices to help during spacewalks. About 2,000 pounds of additional cargo for the station was carried on the shuttle’s middeck.
The unofficial mission elapsed time was 12 days, 19 hours, four minutes and 50 seconds. The flight gave Discovery a total of 148,221,675 miles traveled in 5,830 orbits.
The crew is scheduled to return to Houston for a welcome at Ellington Field’s Hangar 276 about 4 p.m. Thursday. Gates will open at 3:30 for the public to attend.
