Late Heat Shield Inspections for Shuttle

The seven-member crew was awakened Wednesday morning to the song “Yellow” by the band Coldplay, uplinked for Pilot Doug Hurley in honor of his International Space Station fly-around.

Space shuttle Endeavour undocked Tuesday from the International Space Station at 1:26 p.m. EDT. After completing a fly-around of the space station, Endeavour performed a maneuver to separate from the station.

Shuttle astronauts will inspect Endeavour’s heat shield one more time today as they begin to set their sights on a Friday landing.

Endeavour’s thermal protection system was cleared for landing earlier in the flight. This late inspection will ensure that there has been no impact damage from micrometeoroids or space junk during its docked operations or fly-around of the station.