WASHINGTON, June 14 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. space shuttle Discovery returned home on Saturday at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, ending its 14-day-long construction mission for the International Space Station.
Discovery, with seven astronauts aboard, touched down at 11:15 a.m. EDT (1515 GMT). The shuttle continued to come to a full stop on the runway shortly, NASA TV showed.
Discovery blasted off into space on May 31, delivering a pressurized module -- the main part of Japan's Kibo laboratory to the space station.
During the 9-day stay at the orbital outpost, astronauts performed three spacewalks. They successfully installed the new module, which is now the biggest of the nine rooms on the station, and relocated the previously-delivered storage module of Kibo to be connected with the new room.
Astronauts also did some maintenance work for the station.
In addition to the construction work, Discovery also delivered a new resident for the station. Discovery astronaut Gregory Chamitoff switched places with Expedition 17 Flight Engineer Garrett Reisman, who returned to Earth aboard the shuttle.
