Space Shuttle Endeavour landed safely yesterday at Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The perfect landing capped a successful construction and supply mission to the International Space Station.
It had undocked from the station a day early in preparation for its return journey.
The earlier landing time was selected in the event Hurricane Dean threatened the Houston area, allowing an opportunity for the shuttle to land before Mission Control was shut down in preparation for the hurricane. Mission managers had been monitoring the situation and assessing their options but officials now think the recently upgraded category five hurricane "poses little hazard" to the NASA facility.
Endeavour had embarked on a 14 day assembly mission to the International Space Station, the second of four missions planned by NASA to complete the space station before the space shuttle fleet retires in 2010.
Its mission was to install a "truss" section weighing about 1.58 tonnes to extend the space station length to that of 108m, replace a defective gyroscope - one of four keeping the ISS on an even keel, and to install a 3.3-tonne exterior stowage platform.
Three spacewalks lasting about six hours and thirty minutes each were deemed enough to allow the two-astronaut teams to accomplish the assembly and repair tasks.
There was a scare on Friday 10th August when NASA detected a gouge in Endeavour's heatshield during a routine inspection as it docked with the International Space Station (ISS). Endeavour was guided into a backflip manoeuvre once it was about 200m (600ft) away from the station, so it could be photographed and checked for damage.
A robot arm equipped with a laser and camera was used to inspect the damage, said to be about 7.6cm squared, caused by pieces of foam which had have broken away, although none were believed to have been big enough to cause serious damage.
The shuttle then re-approached the space station and finally docked at about 1900 BST (1400 EDT).
NASA officials took almost a week to decide whether to send astronauts outside to repair the damage. There were worries that the hole could lead to structural damage on re-entry, but extensive tests concluded it should pose no problem. Mission Control told the seven shuttle astronauts of the decision on Thursday 16th to the relief of the crew.
News of Hurricane Dean's impending arrival into the Gulf of Mexico put pay to the mission lasting the full duration and on Saturday NASA shortened a spacewalk by astronauts by two hours so they could prepare to leave. Astronauts made a final inspection of the orbiter's heat shield which was conducted after undocking from the station making sure all would be ready for re-entry on landing day.
Endeavour's first landing opportunity is on Tuesday is at 17:32 BST (12.32 EDT) at Kennedy Space Centre, Florida. If they miss that then the next available opportunity will be 1906 BST
View pictures of Space Shutle Endeavour’s mission in our gallery here.
