The space shuttle Atlantis and its crew of seven returned to Earth today, ending their successful Hubble space telescope repair mission in California after stormy weather prevented a return to Nasa’s home base in Florida.

Mission control waited as long as possible for the weather to improve before finally giving up and directing commander Scott Altman and his crew to the Mojave desert.

Atlantis swooped through a clear morning sky and touched down on the runway at Edwards air force base.

“Welcome home, Atlantis,” mission control radioed once the shuttle came to a safe stop. “Congratulations on a very successful mission giving Hubble a new set of eyes.”

“It was a thrill from start to finish,” Altman replied. “We’ve had a great ride.”

After 13 days in orbit, many of them tending to Hubble, Altman and his crew were anxious to be back on the ground. They were supposed to land on Friday in Florida, but Nasa kept the astronauts circling the world in case thunderstorms from a lingering low-pressure system eased up.

The weather did not improve enough, and mission control aborted plans to land at Kennedy space centre.

Nasa loses at least a week of work and close to $2m in transport costs by landing in California, and the astronauts will have to wait another day to be reunited with their families, who were in Florida. The last shuttle landing at Edwards was in November.

Atlantis ended up circling the Earth 197 times and logged 5.3m miles during its journey.

The astronauts left behind a refurbished Hubble that scientists say is better than ever and should keep producing pictures of the universe for another five to 10 years. They carried out five space walks to give the 19-year-old observatory new scientific instruments, pointing devices and batteries, and fix a pair of broken instruments, something never before attempted. Stuck bolts and other difficulties made much of the work harder than expected.

The $1bn overhaul was the last for Hubble: with space shuttles retiring next year, no more astronauts will visit the telescope, and Nasa expects to steer it into the Pacific sometime in the early 2020s.

The astronauts brought back the old wide-field camera they removed so it can be displayed at the Smithsonian Institution. The replacement camera and other new instruments will enable Hubble to peer deeper into the universe.

It will take almost all summer for scientists to check all the new telescope systems. Nasa expects to release the first picture in early September.

This mission almost did not happen. It was cancelled in 2004, a year after the Columbia tragedy, because of the dangers of flying into a 350-mile-high orbit that did not offer any shelter in case Atlantis suffered damage from launch debris or space junk. The public protest was intense, and Nasa reinstated the flight after developing a rescue plan and shuttle repair kits.

The shuttle Endeavour was on standby for a possible rescue mission until late last week, after inspections found Atlantis’s thermal shielding to be solid for re-entry.

Source: Guardian

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