Right On The Money
The space shuttle Endeavour landed at Florida's Kennedy Space Center Monday, returning to Earth after 12 days with three astronauts who have lived in space since August.
Endeavour touched down shortly before 1 p.m. EST after delivering a new crew and more than two tons of supplies to the International Space Station.
Because of war and the threat of sabotage, the shuttle launched and landed under unprecedented security.
The returning space station crew watched the fires in New York and Washington from space following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the crash of a hijacked airliner in Pennsylvania.
It was a triumphant and long-awaited homecoming for the international space station's former commander, Frank Culbertson, and his crewmates, Russian cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin. The men spent 129 days in orbit, circled Earth more than 2,000 times and logged 53 million miles — more than half the distance between the Earth and the sun.
Culbertson's wife, Rebecca, and five children were on hand for his return. The wives of Dezhurov and Tyurin also were at the landing strip, but not their daughters, who remained home in Russia.
Mission Control welcomed the seven astronauts and cosmonauts aboard Endeavour, especially Culbertson, Dezhurov and Tyurin, back on the planet after four months.
"Nice job on the approach and landing, there, Dom," Missing Control told Gorie after the spacecraft rolled to a stop.
Culbertson and his crew were in orbit when the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks happened and could see from 250 miles (400 kilometers) up the smoke rising from the devastation at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"That was a horrible thing to see from space, to know that terrible things were happening on Earth like that and we were so far away from our own families," Culbertson said over the weekend.
The three men arrived at space station Alpha in August and departed their orbiting home on Saturday. Just like its Dec. 5 launch, Endeavour's landing was under tight security to protect against any terrorist strike. Four attack helicopters flew in formation over the Kennedy Space Center shortly before touchdown.
On Endeavor's last full day in space, the crew released a small glittering satellite from a can in the payload bay.
The sphere, called Starshine, is covered with nearly 900 mirrors to reflect sunlight and provide easy tracking by astronomers on earth.
That will include many students, who helped to polish the mirrors.
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