Space Shuttle Endeavour Set to Land Sunday

GFP Note: Three Georgia Tech grads are in the crew of this mission. It ought to be exciting to hear their tales of space. Now who was the one who lost the tool kit?

The space shuttle Endeavour crew is expected to complete its mission to the International Space Station with a landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:19 p.m. EST on Sunday, Nov. 30. This will conclude a 16-day flight, 11 of which were spent docked to the station.

The STS-126 mission began Nov. 14 and prepared the space station to house six crew members for long-duration missions. The new station cargo includes a water recovery system, additional sleeping quarters, a second toilet and a resistance exercise device. During four spacewalks, the crew serviced the station's two Solar Alpha Rotary Joints, which allow its solar arrays to track the sun, and installed new equipment in support of future assembly missions. The flight also delivered station resident Sandra Magnus to the outpost. Greg Chamitoff will return to Earth aboard Endeavour after spending more than five months aboard the complex.

The entry flight control team in Mission Control, Houston, will evaluate weather conditions at Kennedy before permitting Endeavour to return to Earth. Sunday landing opportunities at Kennedy are at 1:19 p.m. and 2:54 p.m. The secondary landing site at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., will be activated Sunday for consideration as well. The opportunities at Edwards are 4:24 p.m. and 5:59 p.m.

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NTSB to Investigate Incident Involving Midwest Airlines Plane Carrying Senator Obama

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating an incident at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport in which a chartered Midwest Airlines airplane carrying Senator
Barack Obama made an uneventful precautionary landing due to a suspected flight control anomaly.

At about 9:30 a.m. CDT this morning, a McDonnell Douglas MD-81 airplane (N804ME), operated by Midwest Airlines as Flight 8663, diverted to St. Louis, Missouri, during a flight from Chicago, Illinois to Charlotte, North Carolina. There were no injuries to the 48 passengers and crew.

NTSB Chairman Mark V. Rosenker has designated Todd Fox as the Investigator-in-Charge for this incident. Fox is expected to arrive on scene this afternoon.

Post-flight inspection of the airplane revealed an in-flight deployment of the aft emergency exit slide within the tail cone.

Preliminary information indicate that the crew disconnected the autopilot during climbout from Chicago, while being vectored around thunderstorms, when they reportedly felt
elevator control forces that were heavier than normal. They therefore elected to make a precautionary landing at St. Louis. After landing, it was learned that the aft emergency exit slide had deployed within the tail cone. The tail cone did not separate from the airplane.

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