Discovery Safely Completes Mission

July 17, 2006 -- The Discovery landed safely in Florida, ending a 13-day mission to re-establish regular space shuttle flights and continue the assembly of the International Space Station. The shuttle delivered supplies to the station, conducted repairs, and dropped off Thomas Reiter, a German astronaut from the European Space Agency, which brought the number on the station's crew to three for the first time since the Columbia disaster in 2003.

NASA plans on flying 16 more space shuttle missions, mainly to continue space station construction, before retiring the fleet in 2010. To accomplish this, there will need to be about four shuttle flights a year, beginning as early as next month with the space shuttle Atlantis. The International Space Station is a joint project of five space agencies: NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, and the European Space Agency.

Search a collection of National Academies reports on NASA's space shuttle program and the planning, operations, and research activities of the International Space Station.

• NASA: Space Shuttle Page
• NASA: International Space Station Page
• NASA: Space Shuttle History