The space shuttle Discovery arrived home in a near-perfect landing Friday at Florida's Kennedy Space Center amid last-minute suspense over where to land.

In this image from NASA Television, Discovery lands at the Kennedy Space Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Friday.
(NASA TV/Associated Press)

Discovery touched down at 5:32 p.m. ET, a day later than scheduled and after 12 days in orbit.

"You've got seven thrilled people right here," Discovery's commander Mark Polansky told Mission Control after the shuttle came to a gentle stop on the runway.

"We're just really proud of the entire NASA team that put this together. Thank you, and I think it's going to be a great holiday."

The landing came after concerns about rain showers prompted NASA to skip an earlier landing opportunity.

Discovery docks with the International Space Station during the STS-116 mission.
(NASA)

The space shuttle completed 204 orbits of Earth and travelled nearly 8.5 million kilometres in a seventh trip to the International Space Station.

Polansky fired the shuttle's braking rockets at 4:26 p.m. in preparation for the descent to Earth.

Florida is the preferred landing site over the other two potential landing places — Edwards Air Force Base in California and White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico — because it is the final home of the spacecraft.

There were seven possible windows on Friday, ranging from 3:56 p.m. ET to 8:36 p.m. NASA said there were more chances to land on Saturday.

The shuttle needed to land by Saturday because the fuel it uses to generate electricity was running out.

Discovery undocked from the International Space Station on Tuesday. The crew had spent eight days building the station.

The trip included four spacewalks, one more than planned. That delayed the return, originally scheduled for Thursday.