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This is will be the official Space Shuttle Endeavour Landing Thread.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA on Saturday ordered space shuttle Endeavour back to Earth a day early out of fear that Hurricane Dean might disrupt flight operations. The shuttle is now scheduled to depart from the international space station on Sunday, and landing is set for Tuesday. The astronauts had hurriedly completed a shortened spacewalk Saturday and were still cleaning up from it when the decision came down from mission managers. The two crews shook hands and said goodbye, then closed the hatches between their docked spacecraft. NASA worried the hurricane might veer toward Houston, the home of Mission Control,...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA decided Thursday that no repairs are needed for a deep gouge in Endeavour's belly and the space shuttle is safe to fly home. Mission Control notified the seven shuttle astronauts of the decision right before they went to sleep, putting an end to a week of engineering analyses and anxious uncertainty — both in orbit and on Earth. "Please pass along our thanks for all the hard work," radioed Endeavour's commander, Scott Kelly. Mission Control replied, "It's great we finally have a decision and we can press forward." The astronauts had spent much of the...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A close-up laser inspection by Endeavour's astronauts Sunday revealed that a 3 1/2-inch-long gouge penetrates all the way through the thermal shielding on the shuttle's belly, and had NASA urgently calculating whether risky spacewalk repairs are needed. A chunk of insulating foam smacked the shuttle at liftoff last week in an unbelievably unlucky ricochet off the fuel tank and carved out the gouge. The unevenly shaped gouge — which straddles two side-by-side thermal tiles and the corner of a third — is 3 1/2 inches long and just over 2 inches wide. Sunday's inspection showed that...

CAPE CANAVERAL, United States (AFP) - Space shuttle Endeavour linked up with the International Space Station on Friday, bringing the first teacher in space and a new truss segment to expand the orbiting laboratory. Borrowing a navy tradition, a bell rang inside the ISS to welcome the shuttle after it docked with the outpost at 1802 GMT some 341 kilometers (212 miles) above the South Pacific, NASA television images showed. The astronauts will enter the ISS after leak and pressure checks between the two spacecraft, NASA said. Before docking, shuttle commander Scott Kelly made a tricky maneuver to make Endeavour...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - When Endeavour lifts off, former schoolteacher Barbara Morgan will be seated on the lower deck in the middle, exactly where Christa McAuliffe sat 21 years ago. And she'll be flying aboard Endeavour, the space shuttle that was built to replace the Challenger. Morgan, who was McAuliffe's backup, is used to all the comparisons. In fact, she welcomes them. "I think the great thing about it is that people will be thinking about Challenger and thinking about all the hard work lots of folks over many years have done to continue their mission," Morgan said last month....

This is the live launch thread for the Space Shuttle Endeavour. If you can't see it live on tv go to www.nasa.gov Ad Astra!

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A computer sabotaged by a disgruntled worker for a NASA supplier has been repaired and loaded aboard the space shuttle Endeavour for a Wednesday liftoff. A top NASA manager said Monday it was apparently an isolated event and that there was no reason to believe anyone had tampered with anything else on the spacecraft. "We have found no other areas of concern," space shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said. "We have thoroughly reviewed all the parts made by that contractor and gone back through our records to make sure that all the orbiter systems on board...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA began the countdown Sunday night for the launch of Endeavour after completing one final test to make sure the space shuttle's crew cabin was airtight. "The team is ready. Endeavour is ready," said NASA test director Stephen Payne. Last week, NASA replaced a leaky valve in Endeavour's cabin with one taken from the shuttle Atlantis. Engineers discovered that air had been escaping from the removed valve because of a small piece of debris on its seal, Payne said. The valve itself turned out to be fine. Because of the extra work to replace and test...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A week before Endeavour's planned liftoff, NASA was analyzing a cabin leak in the space shuttle Tuesday. The leak was detected over the weekend. NASA thought it fixed the problem by tightening a loose bolt, but testing Monday night confirmed air was still escaping from the crew cabin, said NASA spokeswoman Tracy Young. Engineers have yet to pinpoint the leak, which could require so much work that NASA might not be able to launch Endeavour on Aug. 7. NASA's planned launch of the Mars lander Phoenix later this week could also interfere with Endeavour's flight. The...