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Space Shuttle Discovery is on its way home now and is expected to land early Monday morning. The touchdown, weather permitting, will take place at Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral at 04:46 EDT (09:46 in Ireland and UK; 11:46 in Latvia).

They will initiate landing by firing a deorbit burn at 03:40 EDT (08:40 in Ireland and UK; 10:40 in Latvia). The burn lasts three to four minutes and slows the Shuttle enough to begin its descent to Earth.

Landing date/time update

Due to low clouds at the Kennedy Space Center landing site, Mission Control Houston has waved off both landing opportunities for Space Shuttle Discovery today. STS-114 Commander Eileen Collins and the rest of the crew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery will return the orbiter to normal flight operations for another day. The first opportunity is at 05:08 EDT Tuesday (10:08 in Ireland and UK; 12:08 in Latvia).

There are four opportunities to land tomorrow, two at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and two at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

For more information see:
- Landing 101
- STS-114 NASA TV Schedule
- Fact Sheet: Landing the Space Shuttle Orbiter

Maura wrote an article "ISS at its best in three years" about Discovery and International Space Station earlier on.

She writes that after Shuttle's crew completed gyroscope replacement and repairs, the ISS now has four out of four working gyroscopes to keep the station in its position, for the first time in last 3 years. Before that they had only 2 working gyroscopes left.

An update to that post: Shuttle's crew have successfully removed protruding gapfillers and now the mission control believes Discovery is in a good shape for safe landing. With them best of luck and safe return home!

Related:
- Space Shuttle Launch
- Shuttle Launch - Notes
- Return to Flight: Multimedia Library