CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—NASA skipped the first opportunity to bring the space shuttle Endeavour back to Earth on Wednesday because of clouds around the Kennedy Space Center in Florida but will try again later.
The shuttle, returning from a 16-day mission to deliver part of a Japanese laboratory and a Canadian robot to the International Space Station, had been scheduled to land at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT). The second opportunity will be at 8:39 p.m. EDT (0039 GMT on Thursday).
During the stay at the station, the visiting Endeavour crew conducted five spacewalks to install a storage room for Japan's Kibo laboratory, assemble a Canadian-built maintenance robot and prepare the station for future components.
It was the longest shuttle mission since flights resumed following the 2003 Columbia disaster.
A handful of technical glitches that surfaced during the flight, including a tiny nick in one of the shuttle's cockpit windows, was not expected to be an issue for landing, said flight director Richard Jones.
The returning Endeavour crew includes Frenchman Leopold Eyharts, who spent seven weeks aboard the space station setting up Europe's new Columbus laboratory. He was replaced by NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman.
The U.S. space agency plans 10 more shuttle missions to construct and supply the station before the space shuttle fleet is retired in 2010. It also has a shuttle mission scheduled this year to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.
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