" welcome home , endeavour , after a great project to bring the universal aero station to full power , " said an astronaut , frank zamka , radioing from the shuttle control center in houston , texas . nasa tests an unusual tile under the discovery ' s rear wing during its approach for landing . the mosaic was almost eight centimetres thick , and had a groove in it , intended to disturb the otherwise smooth airflow over the shuttle ' s wing , thus exposing it to small numbers of temperature . engineers constructed the system in order to measure the additional electricity that was generation on subsequent tiles . a military airplanes studied the heat with an onboard camera . the light will be used to help develop better designs for modern shuttles .
Houston is George Zamka's hometown.