The space shuttle Discovery capped a successful 13-day spaceflight with a smooth landing in Florida on Wednesday, ending a 27-year flying career for NASA's most-travelled spaceship as the agency prepares for an uncertain future. With commander Steven Lindsey at the controls, Discovery touched down at 11:57 am EST (1657 GMT) to wrap a cargo run and construction mission at the International Space Station. Discovery accumulated 365 days in orbit over 39 missions.
It will now be prepared for display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Sister ships Endeavour and Atlantis will have their finales in April and June respectively, delivering the $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer particle detector and a year's worth of supplies to the station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations that has been under construction 220 miles (350 km) above Earth since 1998. Two other shuttles were destroyed in accidents.