Astronauts close space shuttle's doors for landing

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Aug 21 (Reuters) Astronauts aboard space shuttle Endeavour closed their ship's cargo bay doors for landing today while NASA watched the weather in Florida to determine if winds would be mild enough for the spacecraft's high-speed glide to Earth.

Touchdown at the Kennedy Space Center's 3-mile (4.8-km), canal-lined landing strip was expected at 12:32 pm EDT/2153 IST.

Conditions were forecast to be acceptable for landing, NASA said.

Endeavour and its seven-member crew have been in space for 13 days to deliver new components to the International Space Station and prepare the 0 billion complex for new laboratory modules.

''Although it's been a short two weeks, we've accomplished a lot and we still look very much forward to coming home today,'' Endeavour commander Scott Kelly told Mission Control in Houston, which played a few minutes of Simon and Garfunkel's song ''Homeward Bound'' as a wake-up call for the astronauts.

The crew includes Barbara Morgan, a former teacher who originally trained as the backup to Christa McAuliffe, a teacher who died in the ill-fated Challenger mission in 1986.

NASA ended Endeavour's planned 10-day stay at the station a day early when it appeared Hurricane Dean might prompt an evacuation of the Houston control center.

The storm, which reached Mexico's Caribbean coast earlier today, instead appeared to be heading farther south.

Although the hurricane is not expected to affect shuttle operations, NASA was proceeding with plans to bring Endeavour home today. The shuttle has enough supplies to remain in orbit until Friday if weather or technical problems prevent landing.

While mission managers lauded the crew's success in installing the station's new structural beam, replacing a failed steering gyroscope and configuring equipment to pave the way for future additions, the flight put NASA on notice that its 1.5 billion dollars effort to recover from the 2003 Columbia disaster was not finished.

HEAT-SHIELD DAMAGE A small piece of insulation fell off Endeavour's tank at launch and smashed into two heat-resistant tiles on the ship's belly, sparking a six-day effort to determine if a risky spacewalk to plug the gash would be needed.

In the end, NASA managers said they were 100 per cent confident the damage would pose no threat to the shuttle. But additional modifications on fuel tanks for the next three flights are under consideration, shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said.

Fuel tanks earmarked for flights beyond the next three missions already have been changed to prevent foam loss from the area that shed insulation during Endeavour's climb to orbit on August 8.

NASA made modifications to the fuel tank after the loss of Columbia and its seven astronauts.

A suitcase-sized chunk of foam fell off Columbia's tank and hit the ship's wing, damaging the heat shield. As the shuttle flew through the atmosphere, superheated gases ate into the breach and tore the ship apart.

Hale said he expected the next shuttle flight, which will deliver a connecting hub so modules built by Europe and Japan can be added to the station, will launch close to the targeted Oct. 23 date.

The final flight of the year, a December mission to launch Europe's Columbus module, could face a longer delay because NASA has only one work bay available at the Kennedy center to handle tank modifications.

REUTERS LPB HS1932