CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Shuttle Endeavour's astronauts headed into the home stretch of a two-day trip to Earth Sunday, aiming to taxi an International Space Station crew back to the planet in time for the holidays.
A day after departing the station, the astronauts dispatched a small spacecraft that looks more like a disco ball than a satellite. And they also tested critical shuttle systems in advance of a planned landing Monday at Kennedy Space Center.
With the weather forecast improving a bit, touchdown remains scheduled for 12:55 p.m. EST (1755 GMT), or eight days before Christmas.
"We're glad to see you're on your way home for the holiday season," astronaut Cady Coleman told the crew from NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston. "Hanukkah is already underway and Christmas is around the corner. We just hope you did your shopping before the flight."
Launched Dec. 5 on a space station crew rotation mission, the astronauts started their last planned full day in space with some appropriate wake-up music: A recording of Bing Crosby singing "I'll Be Home For Christmas."
Soaring some 240 miles (384 kilometers) above the globe, the Endeavour crew then set out to test the ship's 44 nose-and-tail steering jets as well as its wing flaps and other flight control surfaces -- systems that will play a key role in a safe landing.
Those tests were completed without problems, and the astronauts also deployed a spacecraft called "Starshine" from a canister in the shuttle's cargo bay. About the size of a beach ball, the hollow aluminum sphere is covered with 900 mirrors that were polished by 25,000 students from 26 different countries.
Sunlight reflecting from the mirrors will make the twinkling spacecraft visible to the naked eye during morning and evening twilight hours, enabling teams from around the globe to track the satellite during the next eight months.
The idea is to teach students the physics of orbital mechanics as well as how solar storms heat up and expand Earth's upper atmosphere, causing variations in density. The resulting atmospheric drag eventually will cause the satellite to burn up like a flaming meteor about 50 miles (80 kilometers) above the planet.
"Not only did we launch a satellite today, but I think we hopefully launched the hopes, the dreams and the hard work of about 25,000 students around the world who helped actually make this," astronaut Dan Tani said after the spacecraft was spring-ejected from its cargo bay canister.
"They'll be able to look up in the sky for the better part of a half-year or so and see the direct result of their work in the space program."
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The satellite deployment set the stage for the shuttle's high-speed return to Earth.
Homebound on Endeavour: U.S. station skipper Frank Culbertson and two Russian cosmonauts -- Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Turin, the three of whom just completed a four-month research tour on the international outpost.
Their station replacements -- outpost commander Yuri Onufrienko and flight engineers Daniel Bursch and Carl Walz -- were ferried up to the 17-story complex aboard Endeavour and will remain there until mid-May.
The weather forecast for Endeavour's planned landing, meanwhile, remains a bit iffy.
A storm front sweeping across the southern United States stalled over Texas Sunday, but meteorologists still say rain showers or thick, low-level clouds could force the shuttle crew to remain in space an extra day.
NASA flight rules call for a landing attempt to be called off if rain creeps within 34.5 miles (55.2 kilometers) of a shuttle runway. Pelting rain can damage the fragile thermal tiles that protect a shuttle and its crew during atmospheric reentry.
Cloud ceilings over the shuttle runway also must be at least 8,000 feet (2,427 meters) to make certain that a shuttle skipper has a clear view of the runway on final approach.
Endeavour and its crew will have two opportunities to land at the shuttle's coastal Florida homeport on Monday, the second coming at 2:32 p.m. EST (1932 GMT).
If weather prohibits a landing, NASA mission managers plan to call up a back-up landing site at Edwards Air Force Base in California on Tuesday.
NASA prefers to land shuttles in Florida to avoid the $1 million cost of ferrying an orbiter back across the country, but the weather is expected to worsen here at KSC Tuesday.
The shuttle has enough electrical power to remain in space until Wednesday.
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