14 DAY TRIAL // Late yesterday night, February 21, the space shuttle Endeavor landed safely at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Topping a two-week mission during which time it delivered NASA's last great addition to the International Space Station (ISS), the spacecraft touched down at 10:20 pm EST (0320 Monday UTC). During the STS-13o mission, three spacewalks saw the installation of the new module Tranquility, and the inauguration of the seven-windowed observations dome called the Cupola. Additionally, other systems on the ISS that required attention were fixed.
“Houston, it is great to be home. It was a great adventure,” Endeavor commander George Zamka radioed to Mission Control upon touchdown. There were some concerns that the space shuttle will not be able to land on Sunday, as the weather appeared to be unstable above the KSC. However, in the end, flight directors gave the six astronauts the green light for descent. The spacecraft used the Shuttle Landing Facility runway as a target for their descent. If the weather hadn't cleared up, astronauts may have had to take Endeavor to California, for a landing at the Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB), Space reports.
“This is a great mission. [I] just can't describe how wonderful it was to look out the Cupola and see that wonderful Node 3 onboard the International Space Station especially as we undocked. We're just all very excited about how well things have gone,” said on Saturday, before undocking from the ISS, shuttle astronaut Kathryn Hire. The STS-130 mission covered about 5.7 million miles (9.1 million kilometers), over the course of about 217 orbits it performed around Earth. The shuttle took off on February 8, from Launch Pad 39A at the KSC.
With the addition of the 1.6-ton Cupola, and the 12-ton Node 3, the ISS now weighs about 800,000 pounds (362,873 kilograms), and is roughly 98 percent complete. The new room will be used to store life support systems, a number of experiments, as well as a control module for the station's robotic arm. Astronauts attempted to hook up the necessary electronics for that while Endeavor was docked, but interferences did not allow them to do that. Mission controllers plan to use the newly-installed Cupola as a control room for the robotic arm, so the necessary electronics will most likely be installed soon.
With Endeavor's flight now successfully done, only four shuttle launches remain in NASA's established flight manifest. The next mission is STS-131, which will be flown by Discovery. Low temperatures at the KSC have determined mission planners to push back the initially-planned launched date to no early than April 5. The new flight will deliver a new Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the ISS, as well as supplies, space parts, and some scientific experiments.