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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