Columbia’s Record Flight Ends in Florida : Space: After two weeks in orbit, the longest shuttle mission comes back down to Earth at its Kennedy launch site. Rain canceled a California touchdown.

With an 11-ton space laboratory snuggled in its cargo bay, the space shuttle Columbia made a picture-perfect landing in Florida early Thursday, concluding a 14-day research mission that made it the longest flight in the history of the shuttle program.

The orbiter was diverted from a planned morning landing at Edwards Air Force Base, north of Los Angeles, by light rain spun out of tropical storm Darby.

An instant after Columbia’s nose wheel touched the Kennedy Space Center’s concrete runway, a huge red, white and blue drag chute billowed out to help bring the space plane to a gentle stop.

“Congratulations on the longest shuttle flight on record,” said astronaut Ken Reightler from the mission control center in Houston. “Thanks for helping to pave the way to space station operations.”

Aside from nicks in the protective tiles on its nose, neither the shuttle nor members of its five-man, two-woman crew showed any obvious effects from their odyssey.

Before being driven away for a medical examination, an obviously elated mission commander Richard N. Richards and shuttle pilot Kenneth Bowersox walked around Columbia for a quick inspection.

Some seven hours later, they and their crew of scientists departed for the Johnson Space Center in Houston and then home.

The Florida landing was the 10th made there since the shuttle program began, and it was significant because the microgravity laboratory in the cargo bay made this shuttle the second heaviest ever to return from orbit.

The smooth landing, aided by new tires and brakes in addition to the drag chute, had the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expressing new confidence about using the Florida landing site.

Edwards has always been the preferred site because of the wide open spaces of the California desert and generally more favorable weather. But the prospect for more rain in California on Thursday prompted officials to use the alternate landing site just a few miles from the launch pad where Columbia lifted off two weeks ago.

Richards and Bowersox fired their braking rockets over the Pacific at 6:41 a.m. EDT, slowing the orbiter by 340 feet per second and kicking it out of orbit. Columbia was visible as a fast-moving star as it passed over Houston on its descent.

Columbia touched the runway in Florida at 7:42 a.m., having traveled 5.7 million miles.

The 13-day, 19-hour, and 30-minute trip was the United States’ longest space mission, except for three Skylab flights in 1973 and 1974, which lasted 28, 59 and 84 days.

Shortly after touchdown Thursday, technicians began unloading 31 experiments carried out in the space lab during its stay in orbit. Comprehensive results from experiments in protein crystal growth and other material processes are not expected for weeks.

Although the long flight permitted scientist-astronauts to do the most intensive experimental work yet in the shuttle program, members of the crew emphasized on more than one occasion that they were hard pressed to carry out all of their planned work.

They used the occasion to lobby good-naturedly for the controversial space station Freedom. NASA hopes the space station will provide a laboratory where such experimental work can be moved toward practical application.

In spite of the close quarters, crew members told Kennedy Space Center Director Robert L. Crippen shortly after their return that they could have remained in orbit comfortably for several more days.

The orbiter had been outfitted with extra hydrogen and oxygen tanks for fuel cells generating its electricity and had provisions to last through today.