DANNY ZENO: Next on the NASA Space Shuttle Status Report:
Discovery returns home to Kennedy Space Center at the conclusion of the
STS-120 mission to the International Space Station.
Atlantis rolls out to the launch pad for STS-122!
Pre-flight preps continue on Endeavour for the first mission of 2008.
The NASA Space Shuttle Status Report starts right now!
I'm Danny Zeno, NASA test director, and this is the NASA Space Shuttle Status Report.
At the conclusion of a 15-day flight to the International Space Station, the crew of space shuttle
Discovery returned home to a warm welcome at the Kennedy Space Center.
During the mission, the STS-120 crew continued on-orbit construction of the station
with the installation of the Harmony Node 2 module, relocation of the P6 truss and solar array repair.
Following the successful repair work, the crew was able to fully deploy the solar array.
They conducted a total of four spacewalks. Discovery also delivered a new station crew member,
Flight Engineer Daniel Tani, who replaced astronaut Clayton Anderson.
The crew members discussed their exciting mission with members of the media:
COMMANDER PAM MELROY: It's great to be out here on this gorgeous day. A little breezy.
It's great to be back in Florida, especially the home of Discovery. We could not have done this mission
without Discovery being as clean and beautiful as it was. Discovery worked perfectly and I just want to
say a big thank you to everybody at the Kennedy Space Center for everything that you do because it takes
an entire team to pull it together to launch a shuttle as clean as this. And that goes for the whole agency.
I think the whole agency had to pull it together for this particular mission.
ZENO: After landing, workers safed the orbiter, then towed it to bay 3 of the
Orbiter Processing Facility for post-flight servicing.
The crew of mission STS-122 is the next to fly this December aboard space shuttle Atlantis!
The newly mated orbiter, tank and boosters slowly moved along the crawlerway
from the Vehicle Assembly Building to reach Launch Pad 39A.
The payload: the European Space Agency's Columbus module. Columbus was transported inside
a protective canister from Kennedy’s Space Station Processing Facility, where it has spent well over
a year being made flight-ready. Now installed in the cargo bay of Atlantis at the launch pad, it is set for a
flight to its permanent destination as part of the orbiting space station.
The Houston-based international crew of Atlantis includes astronauts from both
NASA and the European Space Agency. They will travel to Florida for a
countdown dress rehearsal before lifting off in early December.
Finally, in Orbiter Processing Facility bay No. 2 here at Kennedy, Endeavour is undergoing main
engine installation and a thorough check of its thermal protection system.
The crew of STS-123 will begin carrying Japan's major contribution to the space station,
the Japanese Kibo module, as well as the Canadian robotic arm named Dextre.
That's all the time we have for this week's Space Shuttle Status Report,
your inside look at NASA's three space shuttles as they're prepared for flight!
Until our next report, stay with NASA TV and visit www.nasa.gov/shuttle for the latest in mission news.
For the NASA Space Shuttle Status Report, I'm Danny Zeno.