Unfounded Fog Fears Postpone Shuttle Landing
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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Monday’s scheduled landing of the space shuttle Discovery was postponed for one day because of an overly cautious weather call by NASA.
Flight controllers feared predawn haze might turn into fog at the landing strip, so one hour before the scheduled touchdown, they ordered Discovery to stay in orbit until today.
No fog developed, however, and it turned into a splendid morning.
The astronauts didn’t mind the orbital overtime. They turned on a few science experiments in the cargo bay and then played sightseers, admiring the view from 160 miles up as the shuttle sped around Earth for a 12th day.
For today, NASA is aiming for a single landing attempt here just after sunrise. Discovery has enough supplies to remain in orbit until Thursday.
During their mission, which began Aug. 7, the five U.S. astronauts and one Canadian released and retrieved an ozone-monitoring satellite. They also observed the Hale-Bopp comet and tried out a small yet elaborate robot arm designed for the future space station.
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