CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. — Discovery and its crew returned to Earth on yesterday and concluded a 15-day space station build and repair mission that was among the most challenging — and heroic — in shuttle history.

The space shuttle touched down on a crisp and bright fall afternoon after safely crossing the continent in the first coast-to-coast re-entry since the Columbia disaster almost five years ago.

The seven shuttle astronauts and three residents of the international space station teamed up during the docked mission to save a mangled solar wing. It was one of the most difficult and dangerous repairs ever attempted in orbit, but the future of the space station was riding on it and Scott Parazynski pulled it off in a single spacewalk.

“It was an extraordinary feat,” the shuttle program manager, Wayne Hale, said after shaking the astronauts’ hands. Discovery’s commander, Pamela Melroy, was quick to thank everyone who helped pull off the mission.

“It’s a thrilling day for both the space shuttle and the space station programs,” she said. “We are thrilled to be back home.”

On its way home, Discovery crossed over Canada’s British Columbia and made a diagonal descent over Montana, Wyoming, the Great Plains, the Deep South and, finally, down into Florida. NASA opted for the more populous route to avoid a riskier landing in darkness, and to give the crew some extra rest after such a long and strenuous flight.

Double inspections of the spaceship’s wings in orbit confirmed the thermal shielding would hold up to the 3,000-degree heat of atmospheric re-entry. A quick look at the shuttle on the landing strip showed little if any damage.

Discovery’s journey spanned 238 revolutions of Earth and 6.25 million miles.

A NASA administrator, Michael Griffin, said the flight, from start to finish, demonstrated “NASA at its very best.” He described the landing as “spot on” and also “just as pretty as it gets — if that matters.”

Even before the mission began October 23, the astronauts knew they were in for one of the most challenging and complicated space station construction missions ever. They had no trouble installing a pressurized compartment named Harmony and moving a girder from one side of the space station to another, and even managed to peek into a clogged joint needed to turn the right-sided set of solar wings.

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