Nov 30, 2008, 21:15 GMT
Washington - The seven astronauts on space shuttle Endeavour landed Sunday at California's Edwards Air Force Base, after their scheduled Florida landing was moved due to storms that brought high winds to the Kennedy Space Centre.
After decoupling Friday from the orbiting International Space Station (ISS), the shuttle touched down on the runway at 1:25 pm in California to end Endeavour's 16-day mission, about three hours later that the scuttled Florida landing.
Landing in California adds about a week and 2 million dollars to preparation time and costs for the shuttle's next mission.
During their 11 days attached to the ISS, shuttle astronauts conducted four spacewalks, making repairs to improve the station's collection of solar power. The station was also expanded to house larger crews in the future.
A cold front brought storms with dangerously strong cross winds to the runway at Kennedy Space Centre on Cape Canaveral, Florida, where NASA's shuttle programme is headquartered, forcing the US space agency's mission controllers to order the California landing.
Endeavour delivered a slew of improvements to the ISS: an exercise machine, a second toilet, two sleep stations, a water recycling pump to turn urine into drinking water, two food warmers and a larger refrigerator.
The upgrades to the space station's living space should enable it to house six crew members on longer-term assignments - an increase from the current three - after the retirement in 2010 of the US fleet of aging reusable shuttle orbiters.
NASA extended Endeavour's mission by one day to deal with a problematic urine recycling system, a device considered key to the planned expansion of the ISS crew. Without the device, the crew is reliant on water shipped with other supplies from Earth.
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