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NASA will spend $1.8 million to ferry Endeavour back to Florida.
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EmailSUPPLIES ARRIVE, WITH A TUSSLE
The space station's crew of two Americans and a Russian welcomed the arrival Sunday of a Russian Progress capsule filled with more than 5,000 pounds of supplies, including holiday presents.
The freighter, launched by Russia on Wednesday, docked at 6:28 a.m. CST, but not without a struggle.
An unspecified problem required cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov to override the capsule's automated docking system. Using a control stick inside the station's Russian section, Lonchakov guided the capsule over the final 65 feet of the linkup.
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The space shuttle Endeavour glided to a landing under a sun-filled California sky Sunday after high winds and thunderstorms prevented a high-velocity descent to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The winged ship rolled onto the runway at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., at 3:25 p.m. CST, with the shuttle's commander, Chris Ferguson, a Navy aviator, at the helm.
The landing, heralded by a pair of sonic booms, punctuated a 16-day mission for six of the Endeavour's seven fliers, who equipped the International Space Station with the life support systems to house more astronauts and overhauled the solar power system. Greg Chamitoff, the seventh astronaut, returned to Earth after a six-month tour aboard the orbital outpost.
"Welcome back. What a great way to finish a fantastic flight," spacecraft communicator Alan Poindexter greeted them as Endeavour rolled to a stop on a desert runway ringed by the Tehachapi and San Gabriel mountains.
"We're happy to be in California," radioed Ferguson.
Earlier in the day, Ferguson's crew hoped for a Florida homecoming where families and friends had gathered.
Day without sunshine
Though NASA prefers to land shuttles in Florida near their home base, the Sunshine State's foul weather left Mission Control with few options: either divert Endeavour to California Sunday or wait a day to try to land at Kennedy. But the blustery conditions along a cold front were not expected to improve.The space agency will spend $1.8 million to ferry Endeavour back to Florida, with the ship bolted atop a Boeing 747. The last time a shuttle landed at California was June 2007.
"I know you folks have been working this real hard," Ferguson radioed when informed of NASA flight director Bryan Lunney's decision to give up on the East Coast after the shuttle made two passes at the Florida site. "It is what it is."
Gusts at Kennedy whipped to nearly twice the shuttle's 17 mph safety limit for runway crosswinds. Forecasters issued a tornado watch.
Ferguson, Chamitoff, pilot Eric Boe, Steve Bowen, Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper, Don Pettit and Shane Kimbrough spent the night in California resting and undergoing medical exams.
Home to Houston
With bones and muscles weakened by months of weightlessness, Chamitoff faces one to two months of supervised physical rehabilitation. As his time on the station neared an end, the 46-year-old aeronautical engineer said he craved pizza, diet soda and rocky road ice cream.The fliers are scheduled to return to their Johnson Space Center training base and Houston-area homes today. The space agency plans to host a brief welcoming ceremony at Ellington Field, Hangar 990, at 4 p.m. The event is open to the public.
Endeavour's astronauts equipped the station with a new kitchen, two small bedrooms, exercise equipment and a water recycling system.
The recycler, which was developed to reclaim drinking water from urine, perspiration and other sources of moisture in the air of the space station, competed with a lost tool bag for the mission's highlight reel.
Water samples
The tool bag, which is still orbiting the Earth, floated away during the first of the crew's four spacewalks as Stefanyshyn-Piper exclaimed, "Oh great!" The bag cost NASA $100,000, mainly for labor in its development and tests.The recycler was reluctant to activate but ran like a champ after NASA extended the shuttle's flight by 24 hours for extra troubleshooting.
Endeavour returned to Earth with about 2 gallons of samples of water processed by the recycler. Those and future samples will be tested to assess the quality of the recycled water before NASA authorizes consumption by the astronauts.
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