Edition: U.S. / Global

Space Shuttle Returns by Night

Published: February 22, 1997

The Hubble Space Telescope repairmen came home early today, guiding the space shuttle Discovery to a nighttime landing on a runway illuminated by new golden lights.

''Accomplished 100 percent of everything we set out to do,'' said the shuttle's commander, Comdr. Kenneth Bowersox of the Navy.

Crew members had conducted five space walks, one night after another, to modernize and mend the telescope. The newly installed instruments should allow scientists to look deeper into the universe.

The night landing was only the ninth such landing in shuttle history. The seven astronauts also began their flight in darkness, 10 days ago.

Commander Bowersox sighted the Kennedy Space Center runway from seven miles away. The 52 new halogen lights were installed down the middle of the 15,000-foot strip at the request of astronauts. The lights helped the commander steer the shuttle to the center of the runway.

The astronauts left the $2 billion telescope with two state-of-the-art science instruments worth more than $100 million apiece, as well as updated electronics, data recorders and pointing equipment.

In the fifth space walk, which tied the record for the most on a shuttle mission, the astronauts patched the telescope's peeling thermal insulation, which had been damaged by seven years of sun exposure. They also boosted the telescope to a slightly higher and safer 385-mile altitude. Orbiting objects slowly drift closer and closer to Earth.

The $795 million mission was the second of at least four service calls planned for the telescope, which was launched in 1990 on a 15-year survey of the heavens. On the first repair visit, in 1993, astronauts installed corrective optics needed because of a flawed mirror. Since then, the Hubble has observed galaxies billions of light-years away and provided evidence of black holes in space.

Astronomers will not know until May, after an extensive trial period, whether the new infrared camera and two-dimensional spectrograph will meet expectations.