Discovery to land at California's Edwards' Air Force Base (Update)

August 9, 2005

Space Shuttle Discovery has been cleared to land Tuesday at California's Edwards Air Force Base after weather thwarted its planned landing in Florida, NASA officials said. Earlier, controllers passed over the first landing window of the morning at Cape Canaveral due to weather, which early Monday also resulted in the shuttle crew being ordered to spend an extra day in orbit.

Space Shuttle Discovery will not land at Kennedy Space Center today. Rain showers off the coast make an East Coast landing hazardous for the orbiter.

Focus now turns to Edwards Air Force Base in California, where the weather is clear with a light wind. There are two landing opportunities at Edwards. Mission Control Houston has given the green light for the first opportunity, at 8:12 a.m. EDT. The crew will perform a three-minute engine burn at 7:06 that will deorbit Discovery and put it on track to land in California.

Edwards is where Columbia landed after the first ever space shuttle mission into space on April 14, 1981, and 28 shuttle landings have taken place at the site 144 kilometers (90 miles) north of Los Angeles.

There are several more landing opportunities for today, including two at Edwards Air Force Base in California and two at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.

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