The Discovery Says Good-Bye From Its Travels Through Space
Last Monday, the oldest space shuttle NASA, the Discovery made its last landing on the runway at Kennedy Space Center in Florida around 11:57 am.
The landing of the space shuttle lasted about 65 minutes at a speed of 360 km per hour. On board were six astronauts.
After 27 years of activity, on Monday, Discovery formally dissociate from the International Space Station (ISS) to complete its final mission that took about 13 days in space.
This mission was to install a new storage module and a humanoid robot. Thus, the module was permanently attached to the station, providing additional storage volume to pressure.
The Discovery will be sent to a museum, while NASA will soon send into space the ship Endeavour on April 19, and Atlantis on June 28 for future expeditions.
History:
On August 30, 1984, the Discovery was first sent into space. In 39 missions, it has travelled the planet earth 5,830 times, achieving almost 149 million miles (241 million kilometers). This is the only spacecraft that have been over a year in space. “This legend was 365 days in space,” said Control Center of NASA in Houston (Texas).
Source: Expreso Newspaper