Looking forward to seeing everybody."Īfter medical exams and their first hot showers in 129 days, the returning station fliers looked forward to reunions with friends and family and a bit of food and drink not available in space.Ĭulbertson told flight controllers last week he was especially eager for a taste of ice cream while Tyurin said he was looking forward to "a big glass of cold beer." "Frank, those are great words, we'll pass 'em on and welcome back to Earth," Kelly replied. "We're really grateful for all the great work everybody did." "To everyone who helped make this mission possible and bring us home, thanks very much, we're very grateful to be home for Christmas," Culbertson radioed. medical officers leave it up to the astronaut.įor his part, Culbertson sounded healthy and in good spirits when he called Houston about 25 minutes after touchdown. Russian flight surgeons forbid their cosmonauts from attempting to walk immediately after landing, but U.S. and Russian flight surgeons were standing by to help them off the shuttle as required. The returning space station crew - Expedition 3 commander Frank Culbertson, Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin - made the trip back to Earth resting on their backs, strapped into recumbent seats on Endeavour's lower deck. It was the 57th shuttle landing at the Kennedy Space Center, the 44th to occur in daylight hours. Mission duration was 11 days 19 hours 35 minutes and 42 seconds. Nice job on the approach and landing there, Dom," replied astronaut James Kelly from mission control in Houston. "Houston, Endeavour, wheels stopped," Gorie radioed. EST to close out a 12-day voyage spanning 186 complete orbits and 4.9 million miles.Ī few moments later, commander Dominic Gorie brought the spaceplane to a stop on the runway centerline and along with it, NASA's 107th shuttle mission. 11 world and leaving a fresh crew behind in orbit for a nearly six-month tour of duty.ĭropping like a stone through a somewhat cloudy sky, Endeavour settled to a high-speed touchdown on runway 15 at the Kennedy Space Center at 12:55:10 p.m. The shuttle Endeavour glided back to Earth today, bringing three space station astronauts back to a starkly different post Sept. STORY WRITTEN FOR THE CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION The orange troposphere, where all of the clouds we see from Earth are generated and contained, gives way to the whitish stratosphere and then to the mesosphere.Spaceflight Now | STS-108 | Endeavour shuttles station crew back to EarthĮndeavour shuttles station crew back to Earth The craft is silhouetted against the Earth as it prepares to dock with the International Space Station. In this photo, Endeavour is seen on February 9, 2010, over the South Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern Chile, at an altitude of 183 miles. This week will see the launch of mission STS-134, Endeavour's 25th and final flight, and the second-to-last space shuttle mission ever. The youngest of NASA's shuttle fleet, Endeavour was built with unique upgrades from previous orbiters, including the drag parachute used on landing modified electrical and plumbing systems in the Extended Duration Orbiter (EDO), to allow for extended stays on board (up to 28 days) more-advanced computers and navigation systems a solid-state star tracker and improved steering mechanisms.Īs a tool of space innovation, Endeavour has contributed to projects that have had far-reaching impacts on the space program, including the major Hubble Space Telescope repairs that improved Hubble's clarity, and 10 dockings with the International Space Station, during which Endeavour delivered and installed major sections of the international space outpost. Commissioned in 1987 to replace the space shuttle Challenger, which was lost in 1986, and named by elementary school students after the British HMS Endeavour, the sailing ship that took Captain James Cook on his first travels, the space shuttle Endeavour has earned a short but noteworthy place in NASA's history of space exploration.
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