Space shuttle Endeavour headed for home on Wednesday after delivering a Japanese module and a Canadian robot to the International Space Station.
Its 16-day mission was scheduled to end with a landing at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 23.05pm GMT, 33 minutes before sundown.
Weather forecasts looked favourable and the shuttle was in good shape except for a small nick in the windshield, possibly caused by space debris, said flight director Richard Jones.
The nick did not stop Nasa officials from clearing Endeavour for landing nor did it concern the seven astronauts on the shuttle, he said.
”They are just as confident as we are that Endeavour is ready to come home,” Jones said in a Tuesday night briefing at Johnson Space Centre.
Endeavour‘s return will cap one of Nasa’s longest and busiest shuttle missions. The ship was docked at the space station for 12 days during which the crew performed five spacewalks.
The crowning achievement of the flight was delivery of the first segment of Japan’s three-piece Kibo laboratory.
The module’s installation finally gave Japan a presence on the station and meant that all 15 partner nations are now represented on the $100-billion outpost.
The main lab of Kibo, which means ”hope” in Japanese, will be delivered in a May shuttle mission, followed by the final piece, an external platform, early next year.
Kibo will be the largest lab on the station, which is now 70% complete.
The other big task was delivery and assembly of Dextre, a Canadian-built robot with 11-foot-long arms to perform maintenance on the station exterior.
Nasa plans 10 more shuttle missions to construct and supply the station before the space shuttle fleet is retired in 2010. It also has a shuttle mission scheduled this year to update the Hubble Space Telescope.
Joining Endeavour on the ride back to Earth was French astronaut Leopold Eyharts, returning after one-and-a-half months on the station where he set up Columbus, the European lab delivered during a February shuttle mission.
Asked whether he missed any particular French food while in space, Eyharts replied: ”What I am missing most right now is maybe a small glass of red wine.” – Reuters