HOUSTON - Space
shuttle Endeavour touched down in Florida on Friday morning, bringing to an end
a successful 16-day mission to complete Japan's laboratory at the
International Space Station (ISS).
Shuttle commander
Mark Polansky piloted Endeavour to a 10:48 a.m. EDT (1448 GMT) landing at
NASA's Kennedy Space Center, beating the weather - which called for a
chance of rain - for a smooth landing at its home port in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The astronauts landed after delivering a brand new
experiment porch to the space station along with vital spare parts and a
new crewmember for the outpost's six-man crew.
Returning home
with Polansky and Hurley were STS-127 mission specialists Dave Wolf, Tom
Marshburn, Chris Cassidy and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette. Cassidy
became the 500th person in space on this mission.
Their seventh
crewmate for the trip home was Japan's first long-duration space station
resident, Koichi Wakata. A flight engineer for three successful station crews
since March, Wakata spent 138 days in space before being replaced by NASA
astronaut Tim Kopra, who launched on Endeavour and will return to Earth with
the next shuttle mission targeted for launch in late August.
"I long for
sushi, so that's the first thing I would like to have," Wakata said in an
televised interview Thursday, adding that a dip in one of Japan's hot springs
is next on his list.
He also brought
home some high-tech
underwear and other clothing designed to be stink-free and antistatic,
which wore for a month at a time to test the Japanese-made space garb. Wakata
said he received no complaints from his crewmates.
Front porch
installed, batteries replaced
Endeavour rocketed
to orbit July 15 and reached the space station two days later to begin its
ambitious construction flight. The combined seven-member shuttle crew and
six-man station staff formed the largest crowd aboard any one spacecraft
in history - 13 people.
One of the
station's two
space toilets and a carbon dioxide removal device broke down during the
mission. Both were swiftly repaired, but the carbon dioxide scrubber shut down
again Wednesday. Station astronauts are expected to complete a new repair this
afternoon.
Pilot
Hurley said the best moments of the flight came during those rare
moments of downtime, when all 13 astronauts could gather together, swap stories and tell
jokes.
"It just
seemed a little funnier up here," Hurley said before landing.
Endeavour's
primary mission was to deliver the final component of the Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency's $1 billion Kibo ("Hope") laboratory, an exterior platform designed to
support experiments. Its installation, including the addition of three initial
payloads, required a combination of five spacewalks and the use of three
robotic arms.
The space station is now 83 percent complete with seven more
shuttle flights ahead to finish
construction by 2010, when NASA plans to retire its three-shuttle fleet. It has a wingsan as long as an American football field and can be easily seen at night by the unaided eye.
Wolf, as the
mission's lead spacewalker, accompanied first-time fliers Cassidy and Marshburn
on separate excursions before the former Navy SEAL and former NASA flight
surgeon joined together for the final two of the mission's five spacewalks.
Wolf and newly-transferred ISS flight engineer Kopra conducted the first
outing, which included preparing the Kibo exposed facility to accept
experiments.
In addition to
configuring the new platform, spacewalkers also swapped out the first set of
six batteries for the station's oldest operating solar array wing, as well as
performed several maintenance tasks to prepare the outpost for future shuttle
missions and the arrival of Japan's first unmanned cargo ship in September.
Inside Endeavour
and onboard the ISS, Payette, Wakata, Hurley and Polansky oversaw robotic arm
operations, including a ballet of hand-offs between the shuttle's and station's
Canadian-built arms. Japan's Kibo arm was also given its first workout as it
was used to move two experiments and a communications system from a cargo
carrier onto to the new porch.
One of the
best
Despite an early
concern for tile damage as a result of foam debris falling off of Endeavour's
external fuel tank during launch, mission managers praised STS-127 for its
relative clean performance over the course of its 248 orbits.
"It's been as
good as some of the best ones we've flown in the last year or two," said
mission management team chair Leroy Cain. "Certainly one of the best."
In addition to
the foam strikes, which were cleared for re-entry after a series of routine heat
shield inspections, Endeavour experienced an issue with one of its three
power-providing fuel cells and lost use of one of its forward thrusters. Both
problems however, posed no impact to the STS-127 mission.
Now back on
Earth, Endeavour will be serviced and prepared for its next flight, STS-130,
scheduled for a return trip to the International Space Station early next year.
NASA's next shuttle mission, STS-128, is targeted for launch on Aug. 25 aboard
orbiter Discovery pending a check of its fuel tank foam insulation.
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