This story was updated at 11:48 a.m. EDT.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA's space
shuttle Endeavour and its seven-astronaut crew are coming home today to end an
intense construction job at the International Space Station (ISS).
Commanded by veteran shuttle flyer
Dominic Gorie, Endeavour
and its crew are set to land tonight on a runway here at NASA's Kennedy
Space Center and set a new record for the longest space station construction
mission ever flown.
"Endeavour is in great shape," Gorie
said during a series of televised interviews late Tuesday. "We're looking
forward to a beautiful, late afternoon landing tomorrow, right before sunset."
The shuttle is due to land at 7:05
p.m. EDT (2305 GMT) to conclude its 16-day mission, which delivered a storage
room for Japan's
massive Kibo lab and a giant Canadian-built maintenance robot called
Dextre, to the space station among other tasks.
"It was an incredible run that we
had and I'm not sure we could have done it without the guys around me," Gorie
said of his crew.
Returning to Earth with Gorie are
Endeavour pilot Gregory H. Johnson, mission specialists Robert Behnken, Mike
Foreman and Rick Linnehan, as well as Japanese astronaut Takao Doi and French
spaceflyer Leopold Eyharts.
Eyharts is returning to Earth after
almost 50 days in space, which he spent activating the station's European-built
Columbus laboratory. His replacement, NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman, launched
aboard Endeavour on March 11 to begin his own two-month tour at the ISS.
During their flight, Endeavour
astronauts swapped out one station crewmember before performing a record five
spacewalks at the ISS to install the new hardware, inspect a balky solar array
joint, test a goo-slinging tool designed to fix shuttle heat shield tiles and
stow an orbiter inspection boom.
The $209-million
Dextre robot has two 11-foot-long (3.4-meter) arms and is the final
component for the station's robotic servicing system supplied by Canadian Space
Agency. It is designed to replace spacewalking astronauts for routine repair
calls outside the ISS.
The new Japanese storage module is a
squat, 14-foot (4.5-meter) wide cylinder that will serve as an attic for the
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's school bus-sized Kibo laboratory once it
launches in late May.
"They're ready to go," said Richard
Jones, Endeavour's entry flight director, of the homeward-bound shuttle crew.
"They've got their game faces on."
Landing opportunities
Jones said Endeavour has two
opportunities to land today; the 7:05 p.m. EDT touchdown about a half-hour
before sunset and a night return that opens at 8:39 p.m. EDT (0039 March 26
GMT), or about one hour after sunset.
Current forecasts from NASA's
Spaceflight Meteorology Group predict favorable flight conditions during both
passes, though some scattered clouds are expected.
The difference between day and night
landings is largely a preference of a mission's commander, Jones said.
Gorie and Johnson fired
Endeavour's thrusters on Tuesday to give the spacecraft a slight speed
boost, enough to squeeze in at least one daylight
landing attempt. The astronauts also discovered a slight ding the size of a
small ball bearing on one of Endeavour's windows, but the debris hit is minor
and poses no threat to the shuttle or its crew, Jones said.
The shuttle has enough supplies to
stay aloft until Friday, though NASA prefers to keep a couple of days in
reserve in case of uncooperative weather or an unexpected glitch.
"The crew is doing very well and
they're in very good spirits," Jones said. "You can see that they are ready to
tackle anything thrown at them."
NASA roused the astronauts Wednesday
morning with the song "Drops of Jupiter" by the band Train, a tune selected for
Endeavour pilot Gregory H. Johnson.
"Wow, that's a great song to listen
to on landing day. I'd like to thank my wife Carrie and my kids Matthew, Joseph
and Rachel," Johnson said.
"This has been a two-week adventure
and it's been a pleasure and honor to be on it," he said adding that his crew
reveled in their challenges and success. "But in a bittersweet way, we're ready
to get home."
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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