The US space shuttle Endeavour returned home on Wednesday night at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, ending its record-long 16-day construction mission for the International Space Station, NASA TV broadcasted.
After a journey of 6.5 million miles (10.5 million km), Endeavour with seven astronauts aboard touched down at 8:39 P.M. EDT Wednesday (0039 GMT Thursday), just one hour after local sunset. The shuttle continued to come to a full stop on the runway shortly.
"Welcome home, Endeavour," the mission control center radioed, "Congratulations to the entire crew."
"It was a super-rewarding mission, exciting from the start to the ending," Endeavour's commander Dominic Gorie replied.
This is the only 22nd night landing in shuttle program history. The shuttle was originally scheduled to land at 7:05 P.M. EDT. However, just about two hours before this first landing opportunity, clouds were rounding up over the space center. The unstable weather forced NASA's flight controllers to skip to the second landing opportunity at night.
Aerospace Exploration Agency astronauts answer questions during a news conference from the aft flight deck of the Space Shuttle Endeavour in this NASA TV March 25, 2008 video grab. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
Endeavour blasted off into space on March 11 in a nighttime launch. It delivered a Canadian-built robot and the first component of Japan's orbital laboratory Kibo to the space station.
