Atlantis landing in California

Crew returns from breathing new life into Hubble

Delayed two days by stormy Florida weather, the shuttle Atlantis glided to a California landing today, closing out a successful mission to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope with a picture-perfect Mojave Desert touchdown.

President Obama hails successful Hubble repair

President Barack Obama called the crew of the shuttle Atlantis late Wednesday and congratulated the astronauts on the successful overhaul of the Hubble Space Telescope. He also promised to name a new NASA administrator soon, although he provided no clues as to who might get the nod.

Astronauts test re-entry systems for Friday landing

The Atlantis astronauts tested the shuttle's re-entry systems early Thursday and began packing for landing Friday, weather permitting, to close out a successful mission to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope. The flight plan calls for a de-orbit rocket firing at 8:49:16 a.m. Friday, setting up a landing on runway 15 at the Kennedy Space Center at 10:00:31 a.m. A second landing opportunity is available one orbit later, at 11:39:18 a.m.

With no major technical problems in orbit, the only question mark is the weather, with forecasters predicting a broken cloud deck at 4,000 feet, crosswinds above 15 knots and a chance of thundershowers within 30 nautical miles of the runway, all violations of NASA's landing weather flight rules.

High winds and torrential rains rumbled through the area overnight as severe thunderstorms lashed Florida's Space Coast. There is a 50 percent chance of heavy rain, high winds and thundershowers all day Thursday and more of the same expected overnight and Friday.

But the astronauts have conserved power and now have saved enough hydrogen and oxygen to power the ship's electricity producing fuel cells through Monday. As a result, NASA is not staffing backup landing sites Friday. If the weather or some other issue blocks the two available landing opportunities, the crew will stay in orbit an extra day and try again Saturday.

Shuttle Atlantis blasting from NASA

When the space shuttle Atlantis blasts off on NASA's final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, the shuttle Endeavour and a four-man crew will be standing by for launch on a mission space agency managers hope will never be needed: an emergency rescue flight to bring the Atlantis astronauts back to Earth if heat shield damage or some other problem prevents a safe re-entry.