Finally! Weather Lets Shuttle Land

That Follows Record Third Day Of Delayed Return

(CBS)  After an unprecedented streak of bad landing weather, shuttle Endeavour returned to Earth on Saturday, just one day before the astronauts would have run out of clean air, and brought three former residents of the international space station home from a six-month mission.

The spaceship swooped through a hazy afternoon sky and touched down on the runway, a record three days late.

Following a computer-controlled plunge to a point about 50,000 feet above the Kennedy Space Center, commander James Wetherbee, making a record fifth descent as a shuttle skipper, took over manual control and guided the spaceplane to a breezy landing, reports CBS News Space Consultant William Harwood.

With on-board supplies and fuel getting low, NASA began the day determined to land the shuttle, if not in Florida then in California. As if to seal the deal, Mission Control awakened the crew of seven with Perry Como's recording of "I'll Be Home for Christmas."

It was three days later than planned after low clouds and rain blocked multiple re-entry attempts Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The crew had enough supplies to stay in orbit until Sunday, when they would have run out of lithium hydroxide to scrub carbon dioxide from their air supply, Harwood says.

But the weather finally cooperated in Cape Canaveral, and Mission Control instructed the shuttle pilots to aim for their home port and look out for gusty crosswind. Thick clouds had prevented Endeavour from landing each of the three previous days.

The homecoming was especially joyous for American astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian cosmonauts Valery Korzun and Sergei Treschev, who rocketed into orbit June 5.

"Welcome home to Valery, Peggy and Sergei after your half-year off the planet," Mission Control radioed.

Whitson's husband, like her a biochemist, anxiously awaited his wife. The cosmonauts' wives and sons also were on hand.

It was an important day for NASA, and not just because of Endeavour's highly anticipated return. Thirty years ago, on Dec. 7, 1972, the space agency launched its last Apollo moon shot.

During their 185-day expedition, Whitson, Korzun and Treschev traveled 76 million miles, the equivalent of more than 150 trips to the moon and back. They circled Earth nearly 3,000 times.

To ease their reintroduction to gravity, the three rode back in reclining shuttle seats. Four doctors and two nurses stood by with stretchers, in case the spacefarers were too weak or wobbly to walk.

Whitson is only the third American woman to make a long spaceflight. She faces 1½ months of rehabilitation to strengthen her muscles and bones. It will be two to four weeks before she's allowed to drive.

Her cosmonaut colleagues also face extensive therapy and will return to Russia in about two weeks.

For the four other Endeavour astronauts, it was a much shorter mission - a 14-day journey that began with a Nov. 23 liftoff. They conducted three spacewalks to install a new girder on the orbiting outpost. During the final outing, John Herrington, the first American Indian in space, got the station's stuck railcar moving by clearing the tracks.

Whitson, Korzun and Treschev were the fifth crew to live on the space station, which began accepting tenants two years ago. Their mission was supposed to end in October, but Endeavour was grounded by a variety of technical problems.

After the shuttle finally arrived with a relief crew, Whitson acknowledged that after six months it was time to leave.

The 42-year-old astronaut said she was looking forward to eating meals that did not come in bags and sipping soft drinks - with ice. She put in an order to NASA more than a week ago for a steak and Caesar salad loaded with garlic.

The new space station residents, two Americans and one Russian, will remain in orbit until March.

NASA's next shuttle flight, meanwhile, is just a month away. Columbia will blast off Jan. 16 on a science research mission with Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon.


CBS News Space Consultant William Harwood has covered America's space program full time for more than 15 years, focusing on space shuttle operations, planetary exploration and astronomy. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood provides up-to-the-minute space reports for CBS News and regularly contributes to Spaceflight Now and The Washington Post.