Space Shuttle Makes Rare Night Landing
Updated 11:01 p.m. EST
The shuttle Endeavour dropped through a partly cloudy sky and glided to a ghostly night landing at the Kennedy Space Center Sunday, leaving the International Space Station behind with a new life support module and observation deck, reports CBS News space consultant Bill Harwood.
The shuttle landing concluded a successful two-week mission. During their visit to the International Space Station, commander George Zamka and his crew installed a new room and big bay window. The addition marked the virtual completion of the orbiting outpost.
Only four more shuttle flights are planned to deliver supplies, equipment, experiment racks and other gear in a final push to leave the lab complex in the best possible shape when the shuttle fleet is retired this fall, Harwood reports.
It marked the 23rd landing for a space shuttle in darkness. The last one was in 2008, by Endeavour as well.
Approaching the spaceport in a steep dive, commander George Zamka guided the shuttle through a sweeping left overhead turn, lined up on runway 15 and swooped to a picture-perfect touchdown at 10:20:31 p.m. EST. Pilot Terry Virts then released a red-and-white braking parachute and a few moments later, the shuttle rolled to a stop.
The weather almost didn't cooperate. All day, clouds threatened to keep the shuttle in orbit. But the sky finally cleared, and Mission Control gave Zamka permission to make a rare nighttime landing.
Endeavour undocked from the space station Friday night, leaving the outpost more than 98 percent complete with the addition of the Tranquility habitation module and a seven-window cupola observation deck.
Space station flight engineer Soichi Noguchi watched Endeavour's fiery re-entry from a window in the new cupola observation deck, tweeting via the internet "I watched the shuttle atmospheric reentry from Cupola window. The view was definitely out-of-the-world."
On the Web
CBS News Space Shuttle Status Reports: https://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/current.html
CBS News Space Shuttle Quick-Look Page: https://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/currentglance.html
CBS News Breaking Space News Page: https://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/recent.html