RETURN 'FLIGHT' SHUTTLE STARTS TRIP TO FLORIDA.Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE Edwards Air Force Base, U.S. military installation, 301,000 acres (121,805 hectares), S Calif., NE of Lancaster; est. 1933. It is one of the largest air force bases in the United States and has the world's longest runway. - Mounted aboard its modified Boeing 747 jet, the space shuttle space shuttle, reusable U.S. space vehicle. Developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), it consists of a winged orbiter, two solid-rocket boosters, and an external tank. Discovery began its journey Thursday to Florida to prepare for a new mission to the International Space Station. Discovery left Edwards Air Force Base at 8:21 a.m. for an overnight stay at Altus Air Force Base Altus Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base in southwest Oklahoma that was established in January 1943. The host wing is the 97th Air Mobility Wing, which includes an operations group, a maintenance directorate, a mission support group, and a medical group. , Okla. The orbiter/carrier tandem is scheduled to continue on to Florida today, weather permitting. NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. officials are anxious to get Discovery back in Florida to ready it for a Feb. 15 mission to retrieve the space station's first crew and to drop off a fresh team to man the orbiting laboratory. The first crew - two Russians and an American - lifted off Tuesday from Russia to take up residence in the space station. Discovery landed at Edwards on Oct. 24 after being detoured from Florida by high winds. The landing was the first at Edwards in more than four years. High winds and gusts prevented the shuttle's landing three days in a row beginning Oct. 22. On Oct. 24, the crew decided to land at Edwards. The shuttle's astronauts returned to Houston the next day. NASA prefers to land the shuttles in Florida to save nearly $1 million in expenses for ferrying cross-country. The landing capped a nearly 13-day mission in which Discovery's crew added new components to the space station, including the $273 million Z1 truss truss, in architecture and engineering, a supporting structure or framework composed of beams, girders, or rods commonly of steel or wood lying in a single plane. , a framework structure to house communications and motion control equipment, and the $20 million Pressurized Mating Adapter The International Space Station (ISS) uses three Pressurized Mating Adapters (PMAs) to interconnect spacecraft and modules with different docking mechanisms. The first two PMAs were launched with the Unity Module aboard STS-88. The third was launched aboard STS-92. for future berthing of new station components and to accommodate shuttle dockings. Discovery was originally scheduled to begin the return trip to Florida on Tuesday, but bad weather and problems attaching the tail cone that covers the shuttle's rocket engine nozzles on ferry flights pushed the flight back. CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1 -- color ran in AV edition only) Mounted atop a modified Boeing 747, the space shuttle Discovery takes off from Edwards Air Force Base on Thursday. (2 -- color -- ran in AV edition only) Final details are taken care of as the space shuttle Discovery is readied for its piggyback piggyback 1. A broker trading in his or her personal account after trading in the same security for a customer. The broker may believe the customer has access to privileged information that will cause the transaction to be profitable. 2. flight to Florida. Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News |
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