This
story was updated at 12:45 p.m. EDT.
HOUSTON -
Astronauts aboard NASA's shuttle Endeavour will rest and pack up their
spacecraft today for the trip back to Earth after delivering a new room and
robot to the International Space Station (ISS).
Shuttle
commander Dominic Gorie
and his six crewmates are taking a half-day off at the space station this
Easter Sunday before stowing away tools and moving the last bits of cargo between
Endeavour and the orbiting lab.
"It's going
to be a beautiful day up here and I hope it is there as well," Gorie told Mission
Control as his crew ended their orbital day in space early this morning. "We're
trying to convince the station into an Easter egg hunt with some M & Ms,
but so far they're not up for tossing around a bunch of those."
Endeavour
and its crew are currently slated to undock from the space station Monday night
at 7:56 p.m. EDT (2356 GMT) after 12 days - the longest docked time yet for a
NASA shuttle - of intense orbital construction work.
"It's
certainly a well-deserved rest for the crew," said Dana Weigel, NASA's lead station flight
director, in an early morning briefing here at the Johnson Space Center.
During
their stay, shuttle astronauts constructed a Canadian-built maintenance
robot called Dextre,
installed an attic-like storage module for Japan's massive Kibo station lab and ferried a new
crewmember to the ISS. The 10 astronauts aboard the station and Endeavour will
discuss their mission with reporters on Earth during a joint crew conference
tonight at 11:18 p.m. EDT (0318 March 24 GMT).
NASA
astronaut Garrett Reisman,
who launched
aboard Endeavour on March 11, is staying aboard the station to replace
French astronaut Leopold Eyharts, who will return to Earth with the shuttle's
crew. Eyharts is wrapping up just over a month at the station commissioning the
European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory that was installed last month.
"It's
amazing how big station is," Reisman
said during the flight, adding that the outpost's interior is about the size of
a Boeing 767 jet. "It's so big, you actually have to plan how you carry your
stuff around because if you have to go back and get something it takes time."
Endeavour's
STS-123 crew performed five spacewalks during their mission, setting a new
record for a single shuttle flight to the ISS. The spaceflyers are due to
complete their planned 16-day mission with a landing at NASA's Kennedy Space
Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Wednesday evening at 7:04 p.m. EDT (2304 GMT).
"We've been
so busy that we haven't seen a lot of the Earth going by," Gorie said earlier in the flight.
In addition
to the Japanese
module and Dextre
robot, the spaceflyers also primed the station to receive its next visiting shuttle
- NASA's Discovery orbiter - in late May by attaching Endeavour's
heat shield inspection boom orbiting lab's exterior on Saturday.
Discovery
is slated to launch on May 25 with the primary experiment module for Japan's
three-segment Kibo
laboratory, an orbital room so large it takes up the entire shuttle bay and
leaves no room for its own inspection boom, mission managers said.
Engineers
on Earth gave Endeavour's heat shield a clean bill of health late Saturday,
clearing the spacecraft for its planned Wednesday landing.
Later
today, Gorie
and his crew will pack up their spacewalking tools and other equipment in
preparation for their departure late Monday. The astronauts will also transfer
last minute experiment samples to Endeavour, such
as tiny seedlings grown by Eyharts in a European experiment to understand
how weightlessness affects plants.
Mission
Control here at NASA's Johnson Space Center roused Endeavour's crew at 12:28 p.m.
EDT (1628 GMT) with the Newsboys song "I Am Free," a tune chosen specifically
for mission specialist Mike Foreman and performed by his church's praise team.
"Good
morning, Endeavour and Happy Easter to you Mike," NASA astronaut Alvin Drew
radioed up from Mission Control.
"Good
morning, Houston and thanks Alvin, that's one of my favorite songs from
church," Foreman said. "That was awesome, and how appropriate for this special
day. It sounds just as good up here as it does down there. Happy Easter."
Drew wished
the rest of Endeavour's astronauts a Happy Easter as well, though they were
busy at the time.
"They're
probably searching for their eggs," Foreman said.
NASA is
broadcasting Endeavour's STS-123 mission live on NASA TV. Click here for SPACE.com's
shuttle mission coverage and NASA TV feed.
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