Discovery ‘Back Where It Belongs’

The space shuttle Discovery completed a cross-country ride atop a jumbo jet and returned to Florida on Sunday, nearly two weeks after safely completing NASA’s first mission since the 2003 Columbia accident.

After stopping to refuel in Oklahoma and spending an extra day at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana because of poor weather, the shuttle landed at the Kennedy Space Center at 10 a.m., riding piggyback on a specially modified Boeing 747 jet carrier. The jet ferrying the 100-ton shuttle flew at about 15,000 feet -- about half the altitude of commercial jet traffic.

“Discovery is back at KSC,” NASA spokesman Bruce Buckingham announced after the last, 2 1/2 -hour leg of the trip.

Stephen Robinson, the Discovery astronaut who made gap-filler repairs to the shuttle during a spacewalk, was among the crowd that gathered at the landing strip to welcome the shuttle.

“As much as a person can love a machine, I really love that bird,” Robinson said. “Look at this magnificent sight of it out here on the runway and back where it belongs.”

Launch director Mike Leinbach was thrilled to get Discovery back from California, where it landed Aug. 9, but couldn’t help but think of Columbia’s catastrophic return that Saturday morning in February 2003.

“I feel like a family member has come home in one piece and safe, and it’s just so damn good to see an orbiter whole again on the back of a 747,” Leinbach said. “It’s just an emotional time. It’s a beautiful sight.”

NASA prefers to land in Florida from space missions, which saves about $1 million in transportation costs, two weeks of processing time and the risks of a 2,200-mile journey from the backup landing site in the Mojave Desert. But bad weather in Florida prompted flight directors to divert Discovery to Edwards Air Force Base.

Vehicle manager Stephanie S. Stilson, who accompanied Discovery from Edwards, said the spacecraft showed remarkably little damage, although its nose cap -- a particularly vulnerable area -- had a ding.

Stilson said the chip in the nose cap’s thermal shielding was smaller than the tip of a pinkie finger -- “very, very minor damage” -- and workers should be able to easily repair it.

The next shuttle mission to the International Space Station will be no earlier than March while engineers try to find out why insulating foam fell off Discovery’s external fuel tank.