Shuttle crew lands in Florida

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., March 12 (UPI) -- Space shuttle Columbia, seven astronauts and some old equipment from the Hubble Space Telescope returned to Earth early Tuesday, wrapping up NASA's first mission of the year and the fourth servicing call to the world's premier observatory.

Sailing through night skies, Columbia's captain Scott Altman steered the spaceplane toward a canal-lined landing strip at the Kennedy Space Center just a few miles from where the shuttle blasted off 11 days ago. Circling high overhead to burn off speed, Altman, who was making his first shuttle landing, then nosed Columbia to the runway, touching down at 4:31 a.m. EST.

"Welcome back," radioed astronaut Mark Polansky from NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston as the shuttle coasted to a stop. "We'd like to congratulate you all on a very successful mission servicing the Hubble Space Telescope."

Replied Altman, "It's great to be back at the Kennedy Space Center after this incredible experience at Hubble."

The shuttle crew spent a week refurbishing the observatory, which has been in orbit 12 years. During five back-to-back spacewalks, astronauts revamped Hubble's power and electrical systems, installed a new, high-powered camera and revived a dormant infrared imager.

"This mission was a huge success," said shuttle integration manger Linda Hamm. "There is really no way to measure this huge technical triumph."

The mission's value will become apparent when Hubble resumes its investigations into the far reaches of the solar system, she added. Astronomers expect to release the first pictures from Hubble's upgraded camera next month.

NASA's attention now shifts to preparing shuttle Atlantis for launch on April 4 on a space station construction mission. The shuttle was scheduled to be rolled out to the launch pad on Tuesday.