Discovery Lands in Florida

duh P3rf3ss3r writes "As reported by the BBC, the space shuttle Discovery safely landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 2232 GMT. Discovery's 13-day mission is being called a success after astronauts undertook four space walks to install new wiring and to do battle with a recalcitrant solar panel. The next scheduled flight is the Atlantis shuttle in March. A video chronicle of the mission, including the landing, is available at NASA's video gallery."

Comments

White Sands is a last resort

[amightywind]

Some people will find the negative in anything. Nothing wrong with a safe, routine KSC landing. For the record the shuttle has an 1100 mile cross range. It was in a highly inclined orbit, so its landing opportunities were limited. Also there are only a handful of runways in the entire world that can handle it, none of which are equiped with crane needed to place the orbiter on top of the carrier aircraft. A White Sands landing would have added 2 months to Discovery's turnaround for the next launch. If you really want to see a shuttle landing at White Sands, dig up the video from STS 3.