The US space shuttle Discovery was due to end its 11-day mission with a Sunday afternoon landing, having successfully prepared the International Space Station (ISS) for its first long-term crew.
Discovery was scheduled touch down at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida at 2:14 p.m. (1814 GMT).
On Friday, the Discovery undocked from the ISS, after the shuttle's seven-member crew delivered two critical components to the station: a structure to support large solar arrays arriving on the next shuttle mission scheduled for November, and a second docking port.
The astronauts spent their last day aboard the station Thursday, working inside the US-made module Unity and the Russian-made module Zaria, connecting the units by cable with the newly installed Z1 telecommunications tower, according to NASA.
The ISS modules Unity and Zaria are now ready to receive US astronaut William Shepherd and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Guidzenko and Sergei Krikaliov, who are scheduled to blast off from Kazakstan's Baikonur launch site October 31 for their four-month stay in the station – WASHINGTON (AFP)
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