TCHS' own Steve Lindsey '78 was at the controls as Space Shuttle Discovery touched down at Kennedy Space Cener on July 18. The successful mission commanded by the veteran Air Force and NASA pilot opens the gate for at least 15 future orbiter missions to complete the construction of the International Space Station, where the crew of six spent nearly 13 days after their July 4 launch.
The spacecraft’s Earth return surpassed all expectations, NASA officials said, despite some thick clouds, a finicky air data probe, and a nicked heat-resistant tile near Discovery’s nose landing gear door.
“I would give Steve a perfect 10 today,” NASA reentry flight director Steve Stitch said of STS-121 commander Steven Lindsey’s landing. “He did a superb job putting Discovery right down exactly where we thought with our analysis that he would land. It was a perfect landing.”
For NASA launch director Michael Leinbach, Discovery’s smooth landing provided a closure of sorts. The touchdown marked the first successful KSC shuttle landing since the loss of Columbia, which was heading towards the Shuttle Landing Facility here when it broke apart over Texas.
After the crew's return to Houston, Lindsay observed that "when we launched, really we as a NASA family, and we as a crew — we had two major objectives."
"The first one was to complete the Return to Flight test objectives that we set out to do and do everything in combination with what STS-114 had done a year earlier; prove the tank hopefully, or at least get a good flight on the tank; develop inspection and repair techniques and do all of that work," said Lindsey of the post-Columbia work intended to safe the shuttle from another accident.
"And our second objective was to get up to space station, get it prepared for assembly, fix some things that were broken, bring the crew back up to three and deliver critical supplies so that we could go to assembly. So with those two objectives, that's what we launched with, and that's what we were all hoping for and praying for. And I think I can safely say, that we accomplished those objectives," he added.
On behalf of TCHS Alumni Assn., "Well done!"
After reports by Space.com, CollectSpace, NASA.
