Bad Weather Perils Landing of Endeavour

NASA on Monday warned the astronauts on the space shuttle Endeavour that bad weather could alter their landing plans as they headed home from the international space station.

Endeavour was scheduled to touch down this morning, 12 days after blasting off on a space station construction mission that had to overcome crippling computer woes.

The forecast called for rain, wind and clouds, not only for today but for the rest of the week. But Mission Control said the outlook for the backup landing strip at Edwards Air Force Base in California was good. Endeavour has enough fuel to stay in orbit until Friday.

During their mission, the astronauts delivered and installed a billion-dollar 58-foot robot arm for the space station. The arm is needed to complete construction of the space station.

A series of computer shutdowns aboard the station prevented the arm from being moved for four days and delayed other work. More than 500 flight controllers and engineers worked round-the-clock to solve the problem.

By Monday, two of the three command-and-control computers were back up to full speed and the third was working, though it lacked a functioning hard drive.

Meanwhile, the world’s first space tourist, California millionaire Dennis Tito, checked into the space station for a six-day stay and got a warm welcome. “I love space,” he said with a big grin.

The Russian Soyuz capsule carrying Tito and two cosmonauts caught up with space station Alpha after a two-day chase that began with liftoff in Kazakhstan. The hatches swung open and a voice called out: “Welcome aboard!”

Soyuz commander Talgat Musabayev floated into the space station followed by the 60-year-old Tito, who looked exceedingly healthy. Tito beamed as he shook hands with the three space station residents and gave a thumbs-up.

“It was a great trip here,” said Tito, a financier who is paying up to $20 million for the round-and-round-the-world cruise. “And I don’t know about this adaptation that they talk about. I’m already adapted. So I love space.”