USA: SPACE SHUTTLE LANDED SAFELY BY FIRST FEMALE COMMANDER

(28 Jul 1999) Natural Sound

Space shuttle Columbia has returned to Earth after a quick trip to orbit to drop off the
world's most powerful X-ray telescope.

Air Force Colonel Eileen Collins landed the shuttle at the Kennedy Space Centre at 2320 local time on Tuesday (0320 GMT Wednesday), the first woman to ever do so.

Collins, 42, a former test pilot who twice served as a shuttle co-pilot, had guided Columbia over central Texas, southern Louisiana, down across the Gulf of Mexico and on into Florida, where 150 people gathered to welcome the five astronauts home.

Unlike its launch, the landing - only the 12th in darkness out of 95 shuttle flights - seemed to go more smoothly was without problems.

The launch five days ago had been delayed twice, plagued by a possible hydrogen fuel leak and a short circuit.

The crew of the shuttle was welcomed home by NASA control centre, who praised the crew for a job well done.

UPSOUND:
\"Welcome home. Eileen to you and the crew, just an outstanding job deploying Chandra (telescope) and bringing Columbia home for a beautiful landing.\"

At five days, Columbia's trip was NASA's shortest planned mission in nine years.

Only one flight, in 1997, was shorter; a defective fuel cell ended that laboratory-research mission after only four days.

Next up for the shuttle is a piggyback ride on a Boeing 747 to California for a yearlong overhaul.

Columbia, the oldest of NASA's four shuttles, will become the second to be equipped with a modern, Boeing 777-style cockpit, featuring nine high-resolution, liquid-crystal computer screens rather than the three old-fashioned ones.

The next scheduled flight into orbit for the space shuttle is in 2001.

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