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NASA just gave shuttle Discovery and its seven astronauts a go to return to Earth and land at Kennedy Space Center at 3:14 p.m.
Discovery commander Lee Archambault will fire the shuttle's twin manuevering engines around 2:10 p.m., slowing the shuttle enough to drop it out of orbit and onto an hour-long freefall toward NASA's three-mile shuttle runway.
A sea breeze caused a shift in the direction of the winds, making for a headwind for a landing on Runway 15, the north end of the KSC landing strip. The headwinds are really strong but they are within the 25-knot limit.
NASA astronaut Brent Jett, who has been flying weather reconaissance in a Shuttle Training Aircraft, told Mission Control that conditions are better than they were when NASA opted to forego a 1:39 p.m. landing opportunity.
The cloud ceiling over the runway now is 5,000 feet, and Jett told Mission Control to let Archambault know he might end up flying through a cloud on final approach but that it would be "no big deal."
"I'm a lot more comfortable with the way the weather is looking," he said.
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