Luke Skywalker's lightsaber arrived safely

The space shuttle Discovery returned home with the item used in the original film inside *The sword will be returned to Lucas Studios

Image: Jim Reilly receives the lightsaber from R2D2.

The seven astronauts aboard the shuttle completed final preparations on Tuesday. These preparations included testing the flight control systems and thrusters, installing equipment and installing a special seat for Clay Anderson, who is returning after more than five months aboard the International Space Station. After that, the crew supervised a course adjustment maneuver, in order to improve the landing possibilities.

Return flight crew supervisor Brian Looney and his crew have been overseeing the Discovery's return and landing since this morning. The shuttle's landing path crossed North America from northwest to southeast, until landing at the Canadian facility at eight o'clock in the evening today, November 7.

The shuttle docked at the International Space Station from October 25. Meanwhile the crew of STS-120 continued to assemble the space station. Crews installed the Harmony Node 2 module, and repositioned the P6 strut. The Harmonic module adds 75 cubic meters to the living volume of the station, thereby representing an increase of almost 20%. It increases the living volume of the station from 425 cubic meters to 500 cubic meters.
After the crew completed the Harmony connection on October 26, they performed four spacewalks outside the station. During the third spacewalk, the P6 strut was installed, and a pair of solar arrays was placed in its permanent position on top of the strut. The fourth spacewalk was modified during the mission so that the crew could repair a ruptured solar array on P6. After the successful repair, the team was able to fully deploy the solar arrays.
The Discovery added a new crew member to the station, flight engineer Daniel Tani.

lightsaber

An unusual item of cargo aboard the shuttle was the lightsaber used by Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films. Chewbacca carried the sword to the airport in California, where it was honorably transferred to NASA's Johnson Space Center. Later in its journey, the sword was packed in a locker on top of the shuttle and launched into space together with the Discovery.

Astronaut Jim Riley, who flew three missions and performed eight spacewalks, said that there is a symbolic connection between the lightsaber and the real work that NASA does in space.

"Between reality and science fiction there is only a very thin line, and it is easy to cross this line if only enough time passes. A lot of what we do now was considered science fiction when I was growing up,” he said. "I think the lightsaber is a good link, because it combines two space-related topics at the same time."

The lightsaber will be returned to George Lucas Films after the mission.

In addition, the shuttle carried the signatures of Astronaut Jim Reilly with R2-D2 and a lightsaber from Star Wars. More than 500,000 students, who came from 500 schools from all over the world. The students signed huge posters, whose pictures were scanned onto a disk. The disc was transferred to mission STS-120 and carried into space.