"Thanks a lot," Ashby said.

With that exchange a convoy of KSC vehicles and workers then raced to greet the vehicle on the runway. Their job: make a quick inspection of Atlantis and check to see if the orbiter is leaking any toxic fumes. Various lines are then connected to the shuttle to help cool it down.

Today's landing and recovery operation was managed from a new Convoy Commanders' vehicle that has room for more people to work inside than the van used before. The new truck features its own mini-weather station, a television camera to help monitor work outside and increased communication capabilities.

It was to take about a half-hour or so to safe Atlantis and get to the point where the crew could begin crawling out of the vehicle. About an hour later they made an appearance on the runway, walking around the shuttle and talking with KSC managers and enegineers.

"It's great to be back in Florida," Ashby said on NASA TV from a microphone set up on the runway. "What an incredible adventure we've been on. As I stand here, I can't help but think of all the people who helped us take the S-One truss up there. It's been an amazing team effort."

Coming home

The landing procedure began four hours earlier when Atlantis' payload bay doors were closed. Then, the re-entry software was loaded into the computer and the five astronauts and one cosmonaut put on their bright orange spacesuits for the dive through Earth's atmosphere.

With a nearly perfect weather forecast and no technical issues to deal with, entry flight director John Shannon had no difficulty in deciding to allow Atlantis back on the planet and gave his "go" for the de-orbit burn.

At 10:36 a.m. EDT (1436 GMT) Atlantis' twin orbital maneuvering engines for two minutes and 12 seconds in a braking maneuver that slowed Atlantis down by 171 miles per hour.

With that little nudge Atlantis' orbit became extremely egg-shaped such that the low end of the orbit was well within Earth's atmosphere, forcing the shuttle to re-enter and commit to a landing.

During the return Ashby and Melroy were seated on the flight deck along with mission specialists Dave Wolf and Sandy Magnus, while below on the mid-deck were Sellers and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin.

As Atlantis approached the space center, twin sonic booms echoed across the area including at launch pad 39A, where the crew of the next shuttle mission was participating in training for their planned Nov. 10 liftoff.

Next up to bat

Nearly identical to Atlantis' flight plan, Endeavour's crew will bring up a mirror-version of the S1 truss segment just attached to the station, called P-One, along the Expedition Six crew to replace the Expedition Five crew now onboard the laboratory complex.

Two issues still need to be resolved before Endeavour can fly, however.

The first is a timing issue with the Soyuz taxi mission that is targeted to launch Oct. 28 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Endeavour can't fly until that taxi mission concludes.

The problem: Tuesday's Soyuz rocket disaster has prompted an investigation that may lead to a launch delay of at least three to four days, bumping the taxi flight to at least Oct. 31, Russian space officials told SPACE.com Friday.

"If the Soyuz does end up slipping, depending on how long it slips, it may impact the launch date," Linda Hamm, a shuttle program manager at Mission Control, said Friday. "We expect that we will hear (an update from Russia) by Tuesday of next week."

The second issue is with the hold down posts that securely bolt the shuttle's solid rocket boosters to the launch pad. A problem with the system during Atlantis' launch is being looked at and engineers need to understand what happened before Endeavour will be cleared to fly.

Part of the pyrotechnic system that ignites a set of explosive bolts did not work properly.

"That problem could be either on the mobile launch platform at Kennedy Space Center or it could be on the orbiter," Hamm said. "We've done extensive troubleshooting on the ground side and so far we have not found the smoking gun."

For now, Endeavour officially remains targeted to launch between 10:30 p.m. EST on Nov. 9 and 2:30 a.m. EST on Nov. 10 (0330 to 0730 GMT on Nov. 10).