Photo by and courtesy of NASA

Space shuttle Discovery carried the crew and a new module called Harmony to the International Space Station on a 15-day flight.

More about the mission courtesy of NASA...

The crew of space shuttle Discovery left its mark on the International Space Station during two weeks in space that included adding a new piece, moving another and conducting an unprecedented spacewalk successfully.

"This is truly a triumphant moment for NASA," Scott Parazynski said. "I think we obtained the summit and then some."

"When I look back at our mission, it seems like we kind of hit a triple home run," Commander Pam Melroy said a few hours after landing Discovery at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 7.

The seven astronauts connected a segment called Harmony that will serve as an attachment point for European and Japanese laboratory modules in the next several months. They also moved a tower of electricity producing solar arrays to the far end of the station's central truss.

The group noticed a tear in one of the blankets as the arrays unfurled, and it took a concerted effort in space and at NASA centers to plan a spacewalk to repair the damage.

"It was an amazing thing to watch a large organization like NASA pivot so easily" to tackle the problem, Melroy said.

Parazynski made the repairs during a spacewalk that called for him to be perched on the end of the long boom normally used to inspect shuttle tiles.

"I had more butterflies than I normally do before an EVA," Parazynski said. "It was just different than the prior spacewalks that I had done."

With the repairs completed, the crew was cleared to return to Earth a day later than scheduled, but confident they left the station and its three crew members in good shape for future additions.

"It really was a beautiful moment for NASA," Melroy said. "What you saw is who we are at NASA."

More Discovery Space Shuttle Mission Photos at NASA