Space Shuttle Discovery STS-133 to land today

At 11:57amET/16:57 GMT today, the Space Shuttle Discovery is scheduled to land for the last time after 39 missions, 365 days in space and 148 million miles. Watch the landing live on NASA TV.

Image (NASA): The space shuttle Discovery is seen from the International Space Station as the two orbital spacecraft accomplish their relative separation on March 7. During a post undocking fly-around, the crew of each vessel photographed the opposing craft.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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jonathanpeterson

seems kind of a shame that they took the space shuttle’s cargo arm back down with them.
- imag
  
  Good point. The ISS does have a pretty good one of its own though.
  
  My guess is that the shuttle arm wouldn’t be up to a long-term mission in space. Linking it to ISS would be a trick too…
  - jmcgarry
    
    Two arms. SSRMS (Canadarm2) and JEM-RMS (in the Japanese Experimental Module). And by the end of the year the European Arm should be attached as well.
Anonymous

I wish I could accomplish a relative separation…
Joe Helfrich

While I appreciate the symmetry of Discovery having spent 365 days in orbit, and everything the shuttle program has done, it still seems pretty disappointing that a nearly 30 year old vehicle designed to go into space has spent such a small fraction of its time there.
Brainspore

I kind of hope there’s a freak storm in Florida and the shuttle has to use the landing site in California. Now that there aren’t any more launches scheduled there’s a chance that we’d get to keep it.
- Brainspore
  
  Oh- too late. I didn’t notice the time.
TEKNA2007

Isn’t she lovely. (And back home safely now.)
Wickedashtray

I can’t get too emotional about the SS. While the research it allowed is priceless it was a very inefficient use of NASA funds. One of the few things that Obama has done right is to encourage private investment to drive future expansion of space exploration. Its been suggested that a small-to-medium sized asteroid could be worth several trillion in base metals alone. That’s the kind of incentive that will push space technology along at a faster rate than it is now.