Diverted by bad weather in Florida, the space shuttle Endeavour made a picture-perfect landing at NASA's backup landing site at Edwards A.F.B. in California this afternoon. Today's landing put the final touch on a sixteen day mission to repair a balky solar array joint and outfit the International Space Station with equipment that will enable the massive complex to host larger resident crews next year. Endeavour was diverted to Edwards after mission control passed up the first two landing opportunities at Kennedy Space Center because of high winds and storms in the area.
IMAGES: STS-126 PHOTO GALLERY VIDEO: ASTRONAUT CREW REMARKS BEFORE LEAVING EDWARDS AFB MONDAY VIDEO: POSTLANDING REMARKS BY FERGUSON VIDEO: STS-126 ASTRONAUTS INSPECT ENDEAVOUR AFTER LANDING VIDEO: STS-126 MISSION HIGHLIGHTS VIDEO: ENTRY FLIGHT CONTROL TEAM LANDING REPLAY VIDEO: LANDING REPLAY VIEWS VIDEO: ENDEAVOUR LANDS AT EDWARDS AFB VIDEO: SHORTER CLIP OF ENDEAVOUR LANDING VIDEO: PROGRESS 31 DOCKS WITH ISS VIDEO: HD REPLAY OF PROGRESS 31 DOCKING ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: POSTLANDING REMARKS BY FERGUSON (1200 KPBS VIDEO) ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: STS-126 MISSION HIGHLIGHTS (1200 KPBS VIDEO) ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: ENTRY FLIGHT CONTROL TEAM LANDING REPLAY (1200 KPBS VIDEO) ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: STS-126 ASTRONAUTS INSPECT ENDEAVOUR AFTER LANDING (1200 KPBS VIDEO) ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: LANDING REPLAY VIEWS (1200 KPBS VIDEO) ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: ENDEAVOUR LANDING, L-15 MINUTES THRU LANDING (1200 KPBS VIDEO) ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: ENDEAVOUR LANDING, GO FOR DEORBIT THROUGH L-15 MIN (1200 KPBS VIDEO) ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: NASA TV LANDING COVERAGE - PART 4 - LANDING ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: NASA TV LANDING COVERAGE - PART 3 - DEORBIT PREPARATIONS ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: NASA TV LANDING COVERAGE - PART 2 - DIVERTING TO EDWARDS ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: NASA TV LANDING COVERAGE - PART 1 KSC WAVEOFFS ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: PROGRESS 31 DOCKS WITH ISS (1200 KPBS VIDEO) With shuttle commander Chris Ferguson and pilot Eric Boe on the flight deck, Endeavour dropped through the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean and made a pinpoint landing on the asphalt runway at Edwards at 4:25:06 p.m. EST, rolling to s stop just over a minute later. Today's landing was unique in that it marked the first time in over 20 years that a shuttle has landed on a runway other than the concrete runway at Kennedy Space Center or the normal backup runways at Edwards. The concrete runway normally used at the California site recently underwent major maintenance and landing aids and other equipment still needs to be installed. So, instead, the shuttle landed at a temporary runway that was built next to it. The new runway is constructed out of asphalt, another first for a shuttle landing, and is only 10,000 feet long (with an extra 1,000 feet on each end), compared to the 15,000 foot length of the KSC runway. It's also narrower, being only 200 feet wide, compared to 300 for the Shuttle Landing Facility. Even though it is smaller, Ferguson said he had no concerns about landing on the temporary runway, and he and Boe had practiced landings there extensive in NASA's Shuttle Training Aircraft. Indeed, today's landing was right on target. "Wheels stopped, Houston," Ferguson called to Mission Control as Endeavour rolled to a stop. "Copy, wheels stopped, Endeavour," replied capsule communicator Alan Poindexter. "Welcome back. It was a great way to finish a fantastic flight, Fergie." "And we're happy to be here in California," Ferguson radioed back. Poindexter noted that this was the first shuttle landing on the temporary runway, to which Ferguson replied, "We have about 800 feet of it left, so we didn't quite use it all." When landing on the longer 15,000 foot runways, a shuttle rolls to a stop a few thousand feet before the end of the runway About an hour and a half after landing, Ferguson and Boe, along with mission specialists Donald Pettit, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, Stephen Bowen, Shane Kimbrough and Gregory Chamitoff left Endeavour for a routine postflight medical checkup. Chamitoff returned from six months aboard the space station sdtrapped into a special recumbent seat in the orbiter's middeck. He served as flight engineer for Expedition 17 and 18 before being replaced by astronaut Sandra Magnus, who was delivered to the station on Endeavour and will return with the STS-119 crew next February. At wheels stop, the total mission duration was 15 days, 20 hours, 29 minuts and 37 seconds. Since blasting off November 14, Endeavour circled the Earth over 250 times, covering a total of 6.6 million miles. Endeavour's mission brought nearly 8 tons of supplies and equipment to the space station. A primary goal of the flight was to deliver hardware that will enable the resident crew size of the station to increase from three to six astronauts beginning next year. The shuttle delivered a new wastewater and uring recycling unit which, in the words of Pettit, "turns yesterday's coffee into today's coffee and then, it turn, it makes today's coffee into tomorrow's coffee. It's one of these great circle of life kinds of things." Also brought up in the Multipupose Logistics Module "Leonardo" was a new toilet and a new galley with the first refrigerator for storing chilled food and beverages. The refrigerator is a version of the "Merlin" unit that is used to keep science expirements cool that was modified at Marshall Spaceflight Center for the astronauts' use. Endeavour also delivered two new sleping stations in anticipation of the increased crew size. Additional stations will be delivered next year. The recycling unit is critical to the station's future. Unmanned resupply vehicles are insufficient to cover the water usage demands of the expanded station, especially after the shuttle is retired. The reclamation and recycling unit will provide about two-thirds of the station's water needs once fully operational. After four days of fidgeting to keep it from shutting down early in the the four-hour processing cycle, astronauts were finally able to make the unit operate normally after adjustments were made to eliminate vibration problems in the distillation assembly's centrifuge. The recycler is now in a 90-day checkout period, during which time water samples will be taken to assess the quality and purity of the finished product before people are allowed to drink it. Stowed aboard Endeavour were the first two gallons of samples from recycled wastewater and samples of reprocessed urine. Teams on the ground will analyze those samples for quality as well. The other major task of STS-126 involved the cleaning and repair of the balky starboard Solar Alpha Rotary Joint. The starboard SARJ, which is the mechanism that rotates the solar arrays to track the Sun, has been non-operational since September of last year after contamination and internal damage forced mission control to take it out of autotrack mode. Later inspections revealed metallic shavings inside the race ring and trundle bearing mechanism, symptomatic of metal parts grinding together. Over the course of four spacewalks, Stefanyshyn-Piper, Bowen and Kimbrough used a special grease and cloth wipes to clean the debris from the race ring and replaced 11 of the 12 trundle bearings (the first was replaced on the last shuttle mission). The grease also provides additional lubrication to the assembly to ensure it rotates smoothly. While the damage is too severe to repair completely, the cleaning and lubrication should allow the joint to rotate in autotrack mode and meet the electrical demands of the station. If necessary, future spacewalks may see the joint replace entirely. A test following the fourth spacewalk in which the joint was permitted to make two complete rotations showed it rotated almost as well as it did before the damage occurred. Endeavour will be returned to Kennedy Space Center on the back of NASA's Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft following postlight safing and prep work. The $1.8 million two to three day cross-country flight could begin as early as next weekend. NASA's next shuttle mission is STS-119, currently targeted for liftoff February 12. That mission will deliver the fourth and final set of solar arrays to the space station. After ten years of on-orbit assembly, the Intenational Space Station will look more or less the way it will when assembly is completed in a year and a half. (Space Media Corporation / SpaceflightNews.net)
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