Endeavour ready for landing

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Dec. 16 (UPI) -- With the weather outlook brightening for Monday's planned landing, the shuttle Endeavour astronauts completed their packing on Sunday and dispatched a small shiny satellite for an educational program.

Touchdown is targeted for 12:55 p.m. ET at the Kennedy Space Center. Meteorologists are forecasting acceptable conditions for landing.

"We're glad to see you're on your way home for the holiday season," astronaut Cady Coleman told the crew after waking them Sunday morning with a recording of Bing Crosby's "I'll Be Home for Christmas."

"Hanukkah is already under way and Christmas is around the corner," said Coleman. "We just hope you did your shopping before the flight."

Endeavour commander Dom Gorie and pilot Mark Kelly tested the spaceship's landing systems, finding no problems for Monday's touchdown. The crew then turned its attention to releasing a mirror-studded ball into space to serve as a target for students studying orbital dynamics. The satellite, which is about the size of a beach ball, is covered with 900 mirrors to reflect the light of the sun. It will be visible to the naked eye in the early morning and evening.

The point of the program is to give students a chance to learn first-hand about how Earth's atmosphere expands and contracts, affecting objects in close orbits around the planet.

"Not only did we launch a satellite today, but we hopefully launched the hopes, the dreams and the hard work of about 25,000 students around the world who helped actually make this," said astronaut Daniel Tani, as the satellite sprang out of the shuttle's payload bay shortly after 10 a.m. ET.

Endeavour is to bring home the three space station crew, which has been in orbit since Aug. 10.

"It's a very special experience to be able to do this, to have the honor to do this," returning station commander Frank Culbertson said before leaving the outpost. "We feel like we've accomplished a lot ... but the most important thing is I feel very good, as do my crewmates, about going home to see our families and our friends and getting a chance to re-establish our lives on Earth."

"This has been great," said Culbertson, "but it's time to move on."