KSC-98pc749

NASA Administrator Dan Goldin congratulates Phase I Shuttle/Mir Program Manager Frank Culbertson on the successful conclusion of Phase I of the joint U.S.-Russian International Space Station Program at KSC's Shuttle Landing Facility following Discovery's landing, as Mission Commander Charles J. Precourt (applauding) and the other members of the STS-91 flight crew look on. Culbertson is holding an American flag, a special wrench, and an optical disc, which he had just been presented by Goldin. The flag rode aboard Mir from the beginning of the Phase I program, the wrench was used on Mir and will be used on the International Space Station, and the optical disc holds data recorded on Mir. All of these items were brought back to Earth from Mir by the STS-91 crew. Discovery's main gear touchdown on Runway 15 was at 2:00:18 p.m. EDT on June 12, 1998, on orbit 155 of the mission. The wheels stopped at 2:01:22 p.m. EDT, for a total mission-elapsed time of 9 days, 19 hours, 55 minutes and 1 second. The 91st Shuttle mission was the 44th KSC landing in the history of the Space Shuttle program and the 15th consecutive landing at KSC. Besides Commander Precourt, the STS-91 flight crew also included Pilot Dominic L. Gorie and Mission Specialists Wendy B. Lawrence, Franklin R. Chang-Diaz, Janet Lynn Kavandi and Valery Victorovitch Ryumin of the Russian Space Agency. Astronaut Andrew S. W. Thomas also returned to Earth from Mir as an STS-91 crew member after 141 days in space