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Shuttle Atlantis lands safely in Florida

Space shuttle Atlantis and its crew streaked toward Earth and touched down on Wednesday, wrapping up a 5 million-mile journey to deliver a new lab to the international space station.
Image: Space shuttle Atlantis lands
The space shuttle Atlantis lands as the drag parachute is released at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The shuttle returns from a 13-day mission to the international space station.Steve Nesius / Reuters
/ Source: The Associated Press

Space shuttle Atlantis and its crew streaked toward Earth and touched down on Wednesday, wrapping up a 5 million-mile journey to deliver a new lab to the international space station.

The shuttle and its seven astronauts landed at 9:07 a.m. at NASA's spaceport, where their families and top space program managers eagerly awaited their arrival.

Mission Control informed commander Stephen Frick that the landing weather was close to ideal, with just thin clouds and a slight tailwind. "Great news," Frick replied. Soon afterward, he and his co-pilot fired the braking rockets, causing Atlantis to drop out of orbit and begin the fiery hourlong descent.

Frick safely guided Atlantis down through a sky dotted with thin, wispy clouds and onto the runway.

"We're extremely happy to be home," Frick told Mission Control.

The re-entry path took Atlantis across the South Pacific, over El Salvador and Honduras and then the western tip of Cuba, and up into Florida.

NASA wanted Atlantis back as soon as possible to clear the way for the Navy to shoot down a dying spy satellite on the verge of smashing into Earth with a load of toxic fuel. The missile could be launched as early as Wednesday night, from a warship in the Pacific.

Atlantis circled Earth 202 times during its mission, which began Feb. 7. Nine of those 13 days were spent at the space station, where the two crews installed the European science lab, Columbus, that was ferried up by the shuttle.

A French astronaut, Leopold Eyharts, remained at the orbiting outpost with an American and a Russian to get Columbus up and running. He replaced NASA astronaut Daniel Tani, who was returning home aboard Atlantis after 120 days in space.

After two months of delay because of fuel gauge trouble, Atlantis ended up with an unusually trouble-free flight. Heaters for a set of small thrusters failed earlier this week, but posed no concern for re-entry. And a radiator hose that was bent before the flight retracted neatly into its box when the payload bay doors were closed in the wee hours for landing.

NASA's next mission is just three weeks away. Endeavour is scheduled to blast off with the first piece of Japan's massive space station lab on March 11.

Atlantis, meanwhile, won't fly again until the end of August, when it takes a team of repairmen to the Hubble Space Telescope for one final tuneup.