CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The space shuttle Discovery and its crew landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla., on Wednesday at 1:01 p.m. EST after completing a 15-day journey of more than 6.2 million miles in space.

Discovery’s STS-120 mission added a key component to the International Space Station and featured an unprecedented spacewalk to repair a damaged solar array.

“This mission demonstrates the value of having humans in space and our ingenuity in solving problems,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for space operations, NASA Headquarters, Washington. “The teams on the ground worked around the clock, along with the crews in space, to develop a plan to fix the array. Our high level of preparedness gave us the edge necessary to make this a successful mission.”

Discovery’s crew of Commander Pam Melroy, Pilot George Zamka and Mission Specialists Scott Parazynski, Doug Wheelock, Stephanie Wilson, Clayton Anderson and European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli delivered the Node 2 module, known as Harmony. Harmony will provide attachment points for European and Japanese laboratories to be added later this year and early in 2008.

In addition to Harmony’s installation, Discovery’s crew performed three spacewalks and relocated the P6 truss and solar arrays to its permanent position on the left side of the station. During the fourth spacewalk, the crew repaired a torn solar array on the truss, enabling the full deployment of the array.

The crew and ground teams also worked on a problem with one of the station’s Solar Alpha Rotary Joints, which allows the right side arrays to track the sun. On the second spacewalk, the joint was inspected, and metal shavings were discovered. Samples of the shavings returned with Discovery for further analysis. In the meantime, use of the joint will be limited to occasional adjustments for optimal position in relation to the sun.

Melroy and Expedition 16 Commander Peggy Whitson made history on Thursday, Oct. 25, when the hatch between the space shuttle and orbiting outpost was opened. They became the first female spacecraft commanders to lead space shuttle and space station missions concurrently.

NASA astronaut and station Flight Engineer Daniel Tani, who launched with the crew aboard Discovery, remained on the station. He is scheduled to return home aboard space shuttle Atlantis on a mission targeted to launch Dec. 6. Tani replaced Anderson, who spent almost five months on the station, arriving in June 2007 aboard shuttle Atlantis.

Several inspections in orbit revealed no critical damage to Discovery, and the shuttle’s thermal protection system was declared safe for re-entry on Tuesday. Workers immediately will begin processing the orbiter for its next flight, targeted for April 2008.

With Discovery and its crew safely home, the stage is set for the next phase of station assembly. Before Atlantis’ STS-122 mission delivers the European Space Agency’s Columbus laboratory module to the station, Harmony must be relocated to its permanent location at the front of the complex. The station crew will conduct three spacewalks and robotically move two components this month to complete that task, allowing Atlantis to dock and Columbus to attach to Harmony.

The seven astronauts on board space shuttle Discovery completed final preparations today for their return home with landing planned for the first of two opportunities to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, at 1:02 p.m., EST, Wednesday.

In preparation for the return home, the crew tested flight control systems and thruster jets, stowed equipment and installed a special reclining seat for Clay Anderson, who is returning after more than five months on board the International Space Station. Later, the crew oversaw an orbit adjust maneuver to optimize landing opportunities with weather forecasts indicating favorable conditions for Wednesday’s landing.

Early Wednesday morning, Entry Team Flight Director Bryan Lunney and his team will oversee Discovery’s reentry and landing with the deorbit burn set for 11:59 a.m. The 1 minute, 58 second burn will slow Discovery by 148 miles per hour (217 feet per second) for the reentry across the heartland of the United States traveling from the northwest to southeast.

It is the first cross-country landing attempt since the Columbia disaster in February, 2003. Subsequent flights have limited over-land approaches. However, today’s re-entry and landing path was selected to permit a daylight arrival at the Kennedy Space Center following a particularly taxing mission.

A second landing opportunity also is available about 90 minutes later. Lunney will consider Florida only for Wednesday’s landing attempts with plenty of consumables on board to stay in space through Saturday, if necessary.

After its final on-orbit wakeup call from Mission Control on Wednesday, the crew began landing preparations at 8:03 a.m. and will close Discovery’s payload bay doors at 12:42 p.m. for reentry.

Aboard the space station, Commander Peggy Whitson, and Flight Engineers Yuri Malenchenko and Dan Tani had some off duty time before their full-court press toward Friday’s spacewalk by Whitson and Malenchenko to prepare Pressurized Mating Adapter 2 for its relocation Nov. 12.

During its stay at the station, which began Oct. 25, the STS-120 crew continued the on-orbit construction of the station with the installation of the Harmony Node 2 module and the relocation of the P6 truss.

The crew installed Harmony Oct. 26 and conducted four spacewalks at the station. During the third spacewalk, the crew installed the P6 truss and solar array pair in its permanent location outboard of the port truss.

The fourth spacewalk was changed during the mission so that the crew could repair a torn solar array on the P6 truss. Following the successful repair work, the crew was able to fully deploy the solar array.

Discovery also delivered a new station crew member, Flight Engineer Daniel Tani.

— SOAR Magazine contributed to this report

Astronauts Fix Solar Array:

Astronaut Scott Parazynski, riding on the end of the Orbiter Boom Sensor System, assesses his repair work as the solar array is fully deployed. He and Doug Wheelock were sent on an improvised spacewalk to fix the array, which had been torn.NASA photo.

Mission Specialists Scott Parazynski and Doug Wheelock successfully repaired a torn solar array today during STS-120’s fourth spacewalk. The 7-hour, 19-minute excursion wrapped up at 1:22 p.m. EDT.

Shortly after the spacewalk began, Parazynski rode the station’s robotic arm up to the damaged area of the array. He was secured in a foot restraint on the end of the Orbiter Boom Sensor System, or OBSS – the extension to the shuttle robot arm used for inspection of the orbiter’s thermal protection system.

After reaching the area of the damage, Parazynski went to work installing the cufflinks that were built by the crew. Once the five cufflinks were in place, the crew inside then deployed the array half a bay at a time until the array was fully deployed.

Mission Specialist Paolo Nespoli coordinated today’s spacewalk activities.