spacetoday.net: Shuttle lands in Florida

Posted: Fri, Dec 22, 2006, 7:29 PM ET (0029 GMT)
STS-116: landing (NASA/KSC)

The space shuttle Discovery overcame poor weather forecasts and successfully landed in Florida late Friday afternoon. Discovery landed at the Kennedy Space Center at 5:32 pm EST (2232 GMT) on the second of two landing opportunities at the spaceport. The first landing opportunity had been waved off because of poor weather, and it appeared the shuttle would be forced to land in California or New Mexico, but conditions quickly improved in Florida to the point where shuttle managers gave approval for a landing at KSC, the preferred landing site. The landing brought to a successful conclusion the 13-day STS-116 mission to the space station, the third and final shuttle mission of 2006.