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Atlantis was cleared Saturday to return to Earth on Thursday after the space shuttle’s heat shield was judged capable of surviving the heat of re-entry.
But NASA officials were still deciding whether to keep the shuttle at the International Space Station for an extra day because of a failure of computers on the station. Four of six processors on two computers started working again Friday and the final two on Saturday.
Also Saturday, astronaut Sunita Williams set a record for the longest spaceflight by a woman. Williams, in space since December, surpassed the record of 188 days set by astronaut Shannon Lucid at the Mir outpost in 1996.
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Items compiled from Tribune news services.
