Endeavour lands in California

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., June 19 (UPI) -- After waiting three days for a break in Florida's rainy weather, NASA flight directors gave up and diverted shuttle Endeavour to a landing site 3,000 miles to the west, wrapping up a 14-day mission with a touchdown in California.

"It looks like a gorgeous day out there," astronaut William Oefelein radioed to the crew from Mission Control after relaying managers' decision to abandon attempts to land the shuttle at the Kennedy Space Center.

Endeavour commander Ken Cockrell fired his spaceship's braking rockets to leave orbit and begin an hour-long glide to the Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert.

Circling through clear blue skies, Cockrell gently steered the 100-ton glider toward a concrete landing strip, finally settling Endeavour's wheels onto the ground at 1:58 p.m. ET.

"Welcome back to Earth," Oefelein radioed to the crew as the shuttle rolled to a stop. "And a special welcome home to the (International Space Station) Expedition Four crew after your record stay aboard the ISS. I know there are a lot of folks waiting to see you for a delayed Father's Day celebration."

Strapped in reclined chairs in the shuttle's middeck were returning space station crewmembers Carl Walz, Dan Bursch and cosmonaut Yuri Onufrienko. The men had spent 196 days in space -- a new U.S. space endurance record.

"Thanks from Expedition Four," Bursch said. "It's great to be back on planet Earth."

In addition to ferrying a replacement crew to the space station, the Endeavour astronauts upgraded and repaired the station's robot arm and delivered more than three tons of equipment, supplies, food and water to the outpost.

"This mission was extremely important for future space station assembly," shuttle integration manager Linda Ham said shortly after landing.

The Endeavour crew attached a new platform for the station's robot arm so it could be mounted onto a mobile rail cart to reach future construction zones. NASA plans to resume assembly of the station in August, following an unrelated space research mission slated for launch on July 19.

With weather and equipment-related problems delaying Endeavour's launch six days, a two-day landing delay and now a cross-country ferry flight needed to return the shuttle to Florida for processing, NASA faces a tough schedule getting the shuttle ready for its next mission in October.

"It will be difficult," said Ham. "There is a chance we'll have to slide into November."

Any significant launch delays would affect NASA's crew rotation and station assembly schedules.