Flight Day 16 saw the Endeavour crew, now undocked from the ISS, preparing for Wednesday evening's landing. Touchdown is scheduled for Kennedy Space Center at 7:05PM EDT, after a deorbit burn at 5:58PM. NASA reports:

STS-123 Continues Landing Preparations

Image above: The STS-123 crew members participate in an in-flight media interview. Credit: NASA TV

The crew of space shuttle Endeavour spent Tuesday getting ready for its journey home and the end of the STS-123 mission. Early in their day, the crew members performed a test of the thrusters that will be used to position the orbiter for re-entry and the control surfaces for its flight through the atmosphere.

The STS-123 astronauts also set up the recumbent seat for Mission Specialist Léopold Eyharts, who joined the crew of Endeavour on the International Space Station. The recumbent seat is a special seat designed to reduce the stress of gravity on those who have spent long periods of time in the weightless environment of space.

STS-123 arrived at the station March 12, delivering the Japanese Logistics Module - Pressurized Section, the first pressurized component of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory, to the station. The crew of Endeavour also delivered the final element of the station’s Mobile Servicing System, the Canadian-built Dextre, also known as the Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator.

In addition the STS-123 astronauts delivered Expedition 16 Flight Engineer Garrett Reisman, who replaced Eyharts, a European Space Agency astronaut, on the station.

Endeavour is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., at 7:05 p.m. EDT Wednesday.

Media Resources
› STS-123 Landing Groundtracks
› STS-123 Execute Packages
› STS-123 TV Schedule
› STS-123 Press Kit (4.4 Mb PDF)
› STS-123 Fact Sheet (433 Kb PDF)

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Flight Day 15 pics and video are up at the JSC Gallery. More launch pics and video at KSC. Discussion here. Status Report #31 here. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.