By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : India American astronaut Sunita Williams finally returned after a 195-day record space odyssey with six fellow astronauts as the Atlantis space shuttle roared safely back to Earth.
There was silence in the cockpit as US Commander Rick Sturckow and pilot Lee Archambault completed the final moves to bring the aircraft – which functions as a glider in its landing phase – safely back to earth at 7.49 p.m. GMT Friday (1.19 a.m. IST Saturday), broadcast sound from NASA showed.
Atlantis landed at the Edwards Air Force Base in California after completing a 9.3 million km journey. The space shuttle had to pass up three landing windows Thursday and Friday due to bad weather in Florida, the preferred landing place.
The seven astronauts walked around the shuttle to inspect it for damage after the landing and then retired from public view. Sunita was transported away, presumably to allow her time to readjust to the effects of gravity, DPA news agency added.
Sunita is known for her fitness in space, where she was an official entrant in the Boston marathon that she ran tied down to a treadmill while orbiting in the space station.
US space agency NASA has planned a public welcoming ceremony for Sunita and the six other astronauts.
Though well short of the 438-day world record set by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov in 1994 and 1995, Sunita's journey lasting 194 days, 18 hours and 58 minutes is the longest space flight by a woman. On June 16, she surpassed US astronaut Shannon Lucid's 188-day 4-hour mark set on a mission to the Russian Mir space station in 1996.
On her very first space journey, Sunita with four excursions spread over 29 hours and 17 minutes also topped Kathy Thornton's 21-hour record to become the world's most experienced woman space walker.
"My hat's off to the team that really pulled off an awesome mission," said William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations at a post-landing press conference.
The challenges posed during the Atlantis mission are invaluable learning experiences that will help the agency prepare for future exploration, he said.
"Welcome back! Congratulations on a great mission!" astronaut Tony Antonelli radioed Atlantis commander Frederick Sturckow from Mission Control in Houston as the spaceship's parachute billowed out in the thin desert air.
"It is great and wonderful to see all of them come back home safely," Sunita's father Deepak Pandya said after the landing.
"We all are holding our breath today," Pandya said earlier from New Jersey as his wife Bonnie and daughter Dina awaited her return at Houston. One of his nephews had come from India to watch the landing.
Sunita's family and the world at large had prayed for her safe return as the first Indian American astronaut Kalpana Chawla had perished with six other astronauts in the 2003 Columbia disaster.
According to Shuttle Launch Director Mike Leinbach, Atlantis may be returned to Kennedy Space Centre in six or seven days riding piggyback on a modified Boeing 747.
At that point, the orbiter will immediately begin processing for its next mission, set to launch later this year. The transportation of the space shuttle would cost about $1.7 million.
Williams' space journey began Dec 9 atop space shuttle Discovery. The Atlantis blasted off June 8 to fetch Williams and install new solar power panels aboard the International Space Station. American astronaut Clayton Anderson has replaced her as the new flight engineer on the station.
Atlantis' was the 118th shuttle mission and 21st mission to visit the space station. The next mission is slated to launch in August.
NASA intends to end the ageing shuttle programme in 2010, when it finishes work on the ISS.