Mission accomplished: STS-123 crew prepare to head home

William Atkins
Monday, 24 March 2008 19:39

Science - Space

With a record five spacewalks to their credit and the installation of the first part of the Japanese laboratory Kibo and the Canadian maintenance robot Dextre, the seven shuttle astronauts are preparing to undock from the International Space Station Monday, March 24, 2008.       

Scheduled departure time of the STS-123 crew from the space station is 7:56 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (2356 GMT) on Monday for a two-day trip back to Earth.

They are scheduled to perform their deorbit burn at 6:01 p.m. on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 (2201 GMT), which will take them out of their orbit,

Space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to touch down at the Kennedy Space Center at about one hour later, at 7:04 EDT (2304 GMT).

Coverage of the landing will commence before the landing, but NASA has not announced a specific time when  NASA Television will begin to televise the landing.

During their stay at the International Space Station, they set two records: for the longest stay at the station by a shuttle crew (12 days) and the most spacewalks by a shuttle crew at the station (5).

NASA is getting close to finishing the space station. The space agency only has eight more ISS-assembly missions left (a maximum of ten missions if two missions are added) to finish the assembly of the space station for its eventual completion.

Additional information about these missions follow.