CST Endeavour and its seven-member crew is scheduled to return home this afternoon on one of three landing opportunities available at Florida's Kennedy Space Center. Poor weather conditions forecast for landing, however, may prevent today's scheduled landing.
All times are central.
In each case, the deorbit ignition of the Shuttle's orbital maneuvering system engines would occur about an hour prior to landing. In anticipation of the return home, crew members overnight deactivated payloads and stowed cabin equipment used throughout the mission. With no technical issues being worked, the entry team arrived on console in the Mission Control Center about 7 a.m. to oversee the final hours of Endeavour's already record-setting mission. The weather forecast calls for scattered to broken clouds at various levels in the area of the landing site with a chance of rain and thunderstorms associated with a storm front that has moved into the Florida peninsula. Earlier this morning aboard the Russian Space Station Mir, five cosmonauts and an astronaut talked to Russian Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin and discussed activities aboard the orbiting laboratory.