Weather to Determine Where Discovery Lands

After a day’s delay caused by unfavorable weather here, the shuttle Discovery was expected to return to Earth early this morning ... somewhere.

“We’re going to land [today] one way or another, one place or another, and all we are talking about is where,” NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin said Monday.

The preferred landing site is the concrete strip at Kennedy Space Center, where the astronauts’ families are waiting for their arrival, but the shuttle could touch down at Edwards Air Force Base in California or even at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

The possible landing times at Kennedy were 2:07 a.m. and 3:43 a.m. PDT. The landing times at Edwards were 5:12 a.m. and 6:47 a.m. PDT.

Although 49 previous shuttle missions have touched down at Edwards, NASA officials prefer to land at Kennedy because that avoids the $1-million cost of flying the shuttle back to Florida on the back of a specially modified 747 jet. Some engineers fear that there is also a risk of damage to the shuttle during such a flight.

Only one shuttle has landed at White Sands. Columbia set down there in 1982 when rains flooded runways in Florida and California. But the abrasive gypsum sand on the runway at White Sands damaged Columbia’s engines, requiring extensive repairs.

Although NASA is staffing White Sands for a possible landing, it seems clear that it will be used only in an emergency. The weather forecast for Edwards showed mostly clear skies for this morning, so Discovery probably will land there if there is a chance of rain in Florida.

The agency will not allow shuttles to land during a rainstorm because the falling water could damage the superheated tiles that protect the shuttle during reentry.

If NASA chooses to land at Edwards, Discovery would make an approach that would eliminate the need to fly over Los Angeles. After the breakup of Columbia on reentry in 2003, in which pieces of debris narrowly missed Houston, the agency had decided not to fly over heavily populated areas.

NASA officials said it was possible that an Edwards approach could be visible in the Los Angeles area, but only on the last attempt of the day at 6:47 a.m.

NASA spokeswoman Laura Rochon in Houston noted, however, that the shuttle could stay in orbit beyond today if necessary. “It’s not tomorrow or bust, that’s for sure,” she said Monday.

Discovery’s seven astronauts, meanwhile, had little to do beyond enjoying another day in space and listening to rock ‘n’ roll music beamed up from mission control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“Thank you for a great day off and [we’re] sure looking forward to being back on the ground,” Stephen Robinson radioed down.

The crew was awakened at 5:39 p.m. PDT to “Good Day Sunshine” by the Beatles.

The delayed landing was the latest in a series of minor glitches that had marred the otherwise successful flight. The Discovery crew repaired and replenished the International Space Station and loaded up nearly 7,000 pounds of trash for disposal on Earth.

High-resolution photography during launch showed a one-pound chunk of foam falling off the shuttle’s external fuel tank. The piece was about the same size as one that struck Columbia in 2003, dooming the shuttle and its seven astronauts. This time, the chunk did not hit the shuttle.

Nonetheless, NASA officials, who had already spent 2 1/2 years and $1.4 billion trying to fix foam and other problems after the Columbia disaster, suspended future shuttle flights until they could determine and correct the cause of the foam break-off.

The shuttle Atlantis was scheduled for a September liftoff, but that trip could be delayed until the next launch window in November, or even until next year, depending on progress in solving the problem.

The astronauts also took a spacewalk to remove two pieces of fabric protruding from between insulating tiles on the underside of the shuttle and tested techniques for repairing tiles in space -- although they didn’t need to fix any tiles on the craft.