After orbiting the Earth for nearly two weeks, astronauts aboard space shuttle Discovery were told to circle the planet for another day as bad weather in Florida forced Nasa to delay today’s scheduled landing.

US President George W. Bush led thousands of grieving space workers and their families, friends, neighbours in a solemn farewell today to the seven Columbia astronauts.

Forced to avoid rainy Florida, space shuttle Endeavour and its seven-man crew landed in California today after installing a billion-dollar robot arm on the international space station.