Astronauts pack cargo hauler for trip home

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., June 14 (UPI) -- The shuttle Endeavour astronauts packed up a cargo hauler filled with clutter, garbage and unneeded equipment from the International Space Station on Friday and tucked it into their spaceship's payload bay for return to Earth.

Endeavour is scheduled to depart the outpost at 10:32 a.m., Eastern Time, Saturday after an eight-day visit. The spaceship is ferrying home three men who have been in orbit since Dec. 5.

"We've pretty well wrapped up the docked mission, " flight director Paul Hill said Friday. "The crew is finishing up some fine details, putting things away in both spacecraft and getting ready for undocking."

Taking over operation of the station for the next four-and-a-half months are Valeri Korzun, cosmonaut Sergei Treschev and NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson. The fifth crew to live on the outpost, the trio's first task will be to oversee the installation of the station's 57-foot-long robotic crane onto its newly installed mobile platform. The motorized cart will enable astronauts to attach new truss segments to the station's exterior beam. The trusses, in turn, will be used to mount additional solar arrays and other equipment to increase power production and capabilities of the station.

Ground control teams on Friday were trouble-shooting an apparently minor software glitch with the arm, which was worked on extensively by Endeavour's spacewalking astronauts.

The glitch is preventing the arm from powering up and properly using a new platform mounted on the rail cart. NASA officials said a minor tweak in the arm's operating program will resolve the problem, however.

"This really is a speed bump, software patch and all," Hill said.

Endeavour is due back at the Kennedy Space Center on Monday.