Detoured shuttle ends space station mission

Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. —- Space shuttle Endeavour and its seven astronauts safely returned to Earth on Sunday, taking a detour to sunny California after storms hit the main landing strip in Florida.

Endeavour wrapped up a 16-day trip that left the international space station freshly remodeled and capable of housing bigger crews. It also brought home test samples from a recycling system the crew installed to convert astronauts’ urine and sweat into drinking water.

“Welcome back. That was a great way to finish a fantastic flight,” Mission Control radioed as the shuttle came in over California.

After landing, the astronauts inspected the shuttle’s underbelly, and shuttle commander Christopher Ferguson said Endeavour “fared entry pretty well.”

Former space station resident Gregory Chamitoff, returning from a six-month stay in orbit, also was reported “doing just fine,” as he began reacclimatizing to gravity.

The astronauts had been rooting for a Florida touchdown —- where their families were waiting.

But they were expected to be reunited with them today in Houston.

NASA always prefers to land shuttles at its home base in Florida. It takes about a week and costs $1.8 million to transport a shuttle from California to Florida, atop a modified jumbo jet.

This was the first shuttle landing at Edwards in more than a year. And when Endeavour hurtled over metropolitan Los Angeles, firefighters responded to a report of an explosion —- but it was just the spacecraft’s signature sonic booms.

Ferguson landed on a temporary runway that’s shorter and more narrow than the Kennedy landing strip in Florida. Edwards’ main runway —- which parallels the temporary one —- just underwent maintenance and upgrades, and has yet to be equipped with all the necessary navigation equipment.

Meanwhile, back in space, a Russian supply ship, the Progress M-01M, docked at the space station Sunday, delivering thousands of pounds of propellant, oxygen and water, equipment and holiday gifts for Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov and American astronauts Mike Fincke and Sandra Magnus.