www.buzzofthehour.com

Reports from NASA indicate that the return of Space Shuttle Discovery from it’s 2 week mission is looking good.  Weather reports for the expected arrival have been very good and no problems are forseen.

Mission control reports that the current status of Discovery’s arrival is looking pretty good.  There was one small issue that arose with a small clip that broke off of the tail section during a check of the landing systems.  But NASA reports that previous shuttle returns have also lost this clip and had no problems.  The clip in question is part of the air brake panel on the tail of the space shuttle.  It is primarily there to protect the rudder from the strong heat that is generated on reentry. 

More than likely this clip came loose at some point during the launch of Discovery back on May 31st.  Since the tragedy and loss of Space Shuttle Columbia and it’s crew, NASA scrutinizes every piece of the shuttle that may be lost.

Overall the Discovery mission is being considered a success without incident.  The Discovery crew were able to deliver their cargo, a Japanese laboratory called “Kibo”  which in Japanese means “Hope” and assist in the installation keeping within their timetable.  The 37-foot new lab is about the size of a school bus and will be the biggest “room” in the International Space Station.  Plans are to set to deliver modules to this new lab next year that will provide a small robot arm and a special extension platform that space experiments can be conducted.

Other mission duties included delivering the newest crew member of the International Space Station, Greg Chamitoff.  Chamitoff is replacing crew member Garrett Reisman who has been working aboard the space station for 3 months.  Chamitoff is set to serve for a period of 6 months.

The last part of Discovery’s duties was to deliver a pump that would fix the malfunctioning toilet aboard the station.