A Wobbly Return for Astronauts

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Discovery glided to a landing Wednesday, bringing home three astronauts who spent nearly six months aboard the international space station.

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev and his American crew mates, Susan Helms and Jim Voss, were weak and wobbly after spending so much time in weightlessness but managed to walk off the shuttle instead of being carried off on stretchers.

Shuttle commander Scott Horowitz reported that all three were doing great.

“In fact, we were surprised,” Horowitz said after he and the six others who returned aboard Discovery left the shuttle. “It looked like they were doing a little better than us when we got off the vehicle today, so they’re real troupers. They had a great mission.”

Their homecoming was delayed 1 1/2 hours by dark clouds and rain near the landing strip. When Mission Control finally gave Discovery clearance to land, the three former space station residents cheered so loudly that the rest of the crew, seated upstairs, could hear them without the intercom.

The midafternoon landing ended a 167-day mission for Usachev, Helms and Voss, just 21 days shy of NASA’s space endurance record. They circled Earth about 2,600 times and logged 70 million miles.

About 300 people gathered along the Kennedy Space Center runway to welcome back Discovery and, in particular, the space station’s second resident crew.

Among the well-wishers: the wives and daughters of Usachev and Voss and the parents of Helms, who is single.

“When they came in the door and they walked under their own power into the room and everybody just cheered and tears of joy and everything, it was amazing,” Horowitz said.

The three former space station residents face at least six weeks of medical tests and rehabilitation, beginning immediately. They had to endure the first round of tests before they could satisfy their cravings: a salad for Helms, hamburger for Voss and cheese and coffee for Usachev.