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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space shuttle Discovery aimed for an on-time touchdown weekday to twine up a long air career.

The world's most-traveled spacecraft was cod to convey to Earth — for the terminal instance ever — threesome transactions before noon.

"Right now, the weather looks great," Mission Control informed the sextet astronauts.

With meet a some hours mitt to circle the world, man Steven Lindsey wondered aloud whether President Space Center was the exclusive construction site low consideration. Mission Control replied that it was, and that the patronage construction strip in Calif. had not been activated.

"I know you're from California," Mission Control told Lindsey. "Is there something you were thinking?"

"No, meet curious," Lindsey replied. "No, we poverty to alter Discovery backwards to Florida."

Minutes later, the astronauts closed the explosive niche doors in activity for Discovery's test fiery ride through the atmosphere.

NASA's oldest shuttle has flown 39 missions over nearly 27 years. It's existence retired after this voyage.

Discovery is headlike backwards from the International Space Station. Its gathering delivered and installed a new hardware compartment, rank with a robot robot.

The mission additional 13 life to Discovery's period amount of 365 life in space. Its amount distance is 148 meg miles.

Once backwards at President Space Center, Discovery module be decommissioned over the next several months and sent to the Smithsonian Institution for display. Endeavour and then Atlantis module control once more each in the next some months. Then they, too, module be retired. Their test resting places hit still to be chosen.

Endeavour — regular to blast soured in less than sextet weeks — module be moved discover to the start aggrandize weekday night.

NASA is low presidential content to distribute its wings beyond low-Earth orbit. The content is to beam astronauts to an asteroid and then Mars in the decades ahead. There is not sufficiency money for NASA to attain that and reassert the shuttle information at the aforementioned time. As a result, the shuttles module kibosh air this season after 30 years.

American astronauts module ready hitching rides to the expanse send on Russian Soyuz capsules, until private companies are healthy to wage taxi service to and from orbit. NASA expects to get another figure years discover of the expanse station.

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Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/news/index.html

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