Washington, July 30 (Xinhua) Astronauts inspected the space shuttle Endeavour’s heat shield one more time with lasersand cameras before their scheduled landing on earth Friday, NASA has said.
Endeavour’s thermal protection system was cleared for landing earlier in the flight. This late inspection will ensure that there has been no damage from micrometeoroids or space junk during its docked operations or fly-around of the International Space Station (ISS), NASA said Wednesday.
A preliminary look at the images beamed down found nothing amiss, and everything was on track for Friday’s planned landing, the US space agency said.
It added that there are two landing opportunities at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 1448 GMT and 1623 GMT Friday.
NASA will evaluate weather conditions at Kennedy before permitting Endeavour and its crew to land. If weather prevents a return to Kennedy Friday, the backup landing site at Edwards Air Force Base in California will be activated Saturday for consideration as well.
Endeavour blast off July 15 from Kennedy Space Centre after five delays, on a trip to the space station. Its mission featured five spacewalks and completed construction of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory.
Astronauts also replaced six batteries for the ISS and performed a number of other tasks, including tying down some cables and installing handrails and a portable foot restraint to aid future spacewalkers.
Seven more shuttle flights are planned over the coming year to complete the construction of the ISS. The launch of the next shuttle, Discovery, to the ISS is scheduled for the end of next month.
