Astronomy Picture of the Day -- A Last Landing for Space Shuttle Endeavour

NASA ^ | June 07, 2011 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit: NASA, Bill Ingalls] Explanation: Space shuttle Endeavour is home to stay. In a rare night landing last week, Endeavour glided onto a runway in Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA completing a 16-day mission that included a visit to the International Space Station (ISS). All told, space shuttle Endeavour flew 25 flights since being deployed by NASA in 1992, spending a total of 299 days in space. Endeavour's next mission will be a stationary one in the California Science Center. Even as Endeavour was landing, the space shuttle Atlantis was being rolled out in preparation for the last mission of any Space Shuttle, a mission currently scheduled to being on July 8.

[SunkenCiv]

The Atlantis will be making the last STS mission.

[SunkenCiv]

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[TheOldLady]

Since the final resting place of Endeavour is in the California Science Center in Los Angeles, why did they land in Florida?

[libertylover]

Good question. And why land at night when a few more orbits later it would be daylight?

[Colonel_Flagg]

Government planning.

[left that other site]

Thank you for the ping.

Bittersweet.

[TheOldLady]

Another good question.

[brytlea]

I had always hoped to get up there for one of those. Probably missed them all.

[NCC-1701]

There are just so many orbital tracks that would have taken Endeavour over the US for a landing in either Florida or California. Normally there are two good landing opportunities for a Florida landing. A third FL landing possibility would be a stretch. Same goes for a California landing.

After that is considered, you run into the problem of crew fatigue. Since the crew wake/sleep schedules are set in stone, they can't really change that. How long do you want to keep them up before they are too tired to make the critical decisions necessary for landing?

So a shuttle landing is dependent on a lot of inter-related activities that can't be changed on a whim. It's a well choreographed event based on a lot of barely changeable criteria. And NASA’s been making it look so boringly smooth for thirty years