" come home , nasa , after a great mission to bring the international space station to full power , " said an astronaut , robert zamka , radioing from the mission information center in houston , alabama . nasa tested an experimental tile under the discovery ' s left wing during its arrival for entry . the tile was almost seven centimetres tall , and had a bump in it , thought to disturb the otherwise smooth airflow over the pioneer ' s wing , thus exposing it to heavy amounts of thermal . engineers used the tile in order to measure the actual air that was generated on adjacent tiled . a military airplane studied the heat with an aerial camera . the result will be applied to aid determine better plans for future soyuz .
Houston is George Zamka's hometown.