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Atlantis, crew return to Earth; Endeavour gets ready for February node mission
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NASA/Jim Grossmann
Streams of smoke trail from the main landing gear tires as space shuttle Atlantis touches down on Runway 33 Kennedy Space Center in Florida after 11 days in space, completing the 4.5-million-mile STS-129 mission on orbit 171.
Shuttle Atlantis and its seven-member crew safely returned to Earth and Florida on Friday. On STS-129, the crew delivered 14 tons of cargo to the International Space Station, including spare parts to sustain station operations after the shuttles are retired next year.
After 11 days in space to deliver heavy spare parts, other equipment and supplies to the International Space Station, they landed back from where they started, at 9:44 a.m. ET.
Commander Charles O. Hobaugh said Mission Specialist Randy Bresnik was not present at the briefing because he flew home to be with his wife and new daughter born while he was in orbit.
Nicole Stott is doing really well, said Hobaugh, after her 91 days in space, 80 of them as flight engineer. An observer noted, however, she was conspicuously absent from the meeting with the press.
Meanwhile, preparations for space shuttle Endeavour and its crew are ramping up for the STS-130 mission targeted to launch February 4.
Endeavour is scheduled to roll over from the orbiter processing facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in late December. There, it will be lifted and attached to the waiting external tank and twin solid rocket boosters.
The STS-130 crew members, Commander George Zamka, Pilot Terry Virts ,Jr., Mission Specialists Nicholas Patrick, Robert Behnken, Stephen Robinson and Kathryn Hire, are rehearsing deorbit procedures today at Johnson.
Endeavour will deliver a third connecting module, the Tranquility node, to the station in addition to the seven-windowed Cupola module, which will be used as a control room for robotics.
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