NASA to try for Discovery landing again today

NASA to try for Discovery landing again today

NASA has promised the people of United States that they would get the Discovery Space Shuttle back to planet earth safely today. They have got three separate locations ready for a possible landing after weather conditions forced them to postpone the original landing date scheduled for yesterday. The next best opportunity comes at around 5:07 a.m. ET at the Florida landing site. And this would be the first time since the Columbia disaster that a Space Shuttle would be attempting to land back on the Earth.

Mission controller LeRoy Cain has reported that the NASA’s weather forecast for Tuesday morning at the Florida site is pretty similar to what they faced yesterday. This included possible clouds, light and variable winds, and a chance for rain within 30 miles. NASA has now prepared alternative sites at Edwards Air Force Base in California as a second choice and at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico as a third choice.

NASA would be however preferring to have the Shuttle land at the Kennedy Space Center. This would save them the inconvenience of flying the shuttle back to its launch site from the alternative landing strips. Until now, just 50 of the 111 Space Shuttle missions have landed back on alternative sites to Kennedy Space Center.

Under the new guidelines adopted after the Columbia disaster, Discovery is scheduled to take a trajectory that takes it largely over ocean.