![]() It's hard, it's challenging and it's a lot of fun."Ī formerschoolteacher from McCall, Idaho, Morgan trained alongside McAuliffe and thespace shuttle Challenger crew before their ill-fatedlaunch in January 1986. "Ithink I can speak for all of us to say it's definitely worth it," Morgansaid the years-long training for herself and her crewmates. Meanwhile,Morgan has adapted to life in space after a 22-year journey that began in 1985,when NASA selected her as the backup for New Hampshire high school teacherChrista McAuliffe during the agency's Teacher in Space program. "Actually,I got a timeline with a whole list of tasks to do," Caldwell said with asmile of her present from Mission Control. But asidefrom some knick-knacks, cards and well wishes, Caldwell said her space birthdaywas a busy one. MissionControl awoke Endeavour's crew early Tuesday with a rendition of "HappyBirthday, Tracy" performed by Caldwell's nieces and nephews. Kelly addedthat astronauts aboard Endeavour and the ISS hoped to pause in their work for ashort celebration of Caldwell's birthday, and plan to improvise a"cake" for the occasion out of a brownie. "There's not a whole lot of concern about it on board rightnow." "We'vebeen really busy, we haven't had a lot of time to focus on it," Kellysaid. They spent much of Tuesday installing a new spare partsplatform at the orbital laboratory. A Russian Soyuz rocket with two more new crew members is due to arrive the following week.Kelly addedthat he and his six STS-118 crewmates have been focused on their14-day mission to deliver cargo, spare parts and a new starboard side trusssegment to the ISS. ![]() NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman replaced Eyharts during the mission and will stay aboard until shuttle Discovery reaches the station in late May with the main part of Kibo.Įndeavour's departure cleared the way for the space station's next visitor.Įurope's debut cargo carrier, the Jules Verne, is scheduled to undertake two days of practice rendezvous maneuvers before berthing April 3. The Endeavour astronauts stayed at the station for 12 days, longer than any previous crew, and conducted five spacewalks to install Kibo's storage room, assemble the massive Dextre maintenance robot and prepare the complex for the next wave of construction. NASA hopes to complete three more missions to the space station this year and a servicing call to the Hubble Space Telescope as it whittles down an 11-flight manifest that must be finished by the time the shuttles are retired in 2010. ![]() In the crew cabin upon its return was space station flight engineer Leopold Eyharts, a French astronaut who spent seven weeks aloft to set up a European lab, called Columbus, which was delivered during the last shuttle mission in February. "It was a super rewarding mission, exciting from the start to the ending."Įndeavour dropped off at the space station a storage room for Japan's Kibo lab, as well as a Canadian robot to help astronauts maintain the $100 billion outpost. "Welcome home Endeavour," said astronaut Jim Dutton from Mission Control in Houston. ![]() Gorie looped over the ocean and then nosed the 100-ton ship onto a concrete runway between canals in the Florida marshland. Double sonic booms shattered the evening silence as the ship's speed dipped beneath the sound barrier for the first time since it blasted off in the predawn hours of March 11. With commander Dominic Gorie in control, Endeavour crossed Florida from the west, heading toward the Atlantic coast. EDT (0039 GMT Thursday), ending NASA's 122nd shuttle mission in darkness, just as it began 16 days ago. space shuttle Endeavour returned to Earth on Wednesday, capping a milestone flight that brought Japan fully into the International Space Station partnership with the delivery of the first part of its research laboratory.Ĭlouds at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida prompted NASA to bypass Endeavour's first landing opportunity and nearly the second, but conditions stabilized and the wheels touched down at 8:39 p.m.
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