Shuttle Discovery Set to Make Final Descent

NASA’s oldest space shuttle should touch down at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida this morning.

After 27 years of service, 13 flights, and 238 million km traveled, Discovery is leaving space for the last time today. It’s scheduled to land at 11:57 am, and its next voyage will be to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington. The shuttle was launched on Feb. 24 and docked with the International Space Station, where its crew delivered supplies and equipment and installed the Permanent Multipurpose Module, a structure to be used for storing waste. NASA is winding down its shuttle program and will retire its Endeavor and Atlantis spacecraft this summer. U.S. astronauts will hitch rides on Russian and later privately-owned craft for the remainder of the Space Station’s life.