CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The space shuttle Discovery and its crew landed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., on Wednesday at 1:01 p.m. EST after completing a 15-day journey of more than 6.2 million miles in space. Discovery's STS-120 mission added a key component to the International Space Station and featured an unprecedented spacewalk to repair a damaged solar array.

"This mission demonstrates the value of having humans in space and our ingenuity in solving problems," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for space operations, NASA Headquarters, Washington. "The teams on the ground worked around the clock, along with the crews in space, to develop a plan to fix the array. Our high level of preparedness gave us the edge necessary to make this a successful mission."

Space shuttle Discovery descended to a smooth landing at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., concluding a successful assembly mission to the International Space Station.

During its stay at the station, which began Oct. 25, the STS-120 crew continued the on-orbit construction of the station with the installation of the Harmony Node 2 module and the relocation of the P6 truss.

The crew installed Harmony Oct. 26 and did four spacewalks at the station. During the third spacewalk, the crew installed the P6 truss and solar array pair in its permanent location outboard of the port truss. The fourth spacewalk was changed during the mission so that the crew could repair a torn solar array on the P6 truss. Following the successful repair work, the crew was able to fully deploy the solar array.