Shuttle Endeavour returns to Earth

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The space shuttle Endeavour returned to Earth on Wednesday, capping a milestone flight that brought Japan fully into the International Space Station partnership with the delivery of the first part of its research laboratory.

Clouds at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida prompted NASA to bypass Endeavour's first landing opportunity and nearly the second, but conditions stabilized and the wheels touched down at 8:39 p.m. EDT, ending NASA's 122nd shuttle mission in darkness, just as it began 16 days ago.

With commander Dominic Gorie in control, Endeavour crossed Florida from the west, heading toward the Atlantic coast. Double sonic booms shattered the evening silence as the ship's speed dipped beneath the sound barrier for the first time since it blasted off in the predawn hours of March 11.

Gorie looped over the ocean and then nosed the 100-ton ship onto a concrete runway between canals in the Florida marshland.

"Welcome home Endeavour," said astronaut Jim Dutton from Mission Control in Houston. "Congrats to the entire crew .... on a very successful mission."

"Thanks Jim," replied Gorie. "It was a super rewarding mission, exciting from the start to the ending."

Endeavour dropped off at the space station a storage room for Japan's Kibo lab, as well as a Canadian robot to help astronauts maintain the $100 billion outpost.

In the crew cabin upon its return was space station flight engineer Leopold Eyharts, a French astronaut who spent seven weeks aloft to set up a European lab, called Columbus, which was delivered during the last shuttle mission in February.