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Cloudy skies delay shuttle's homecoming

By IRENE BROWN, UPI Science News

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Dec. 5 (UPI) -- With a cold front snaking toward Florida, NASA managers postponed space shuttle Endeavour's return to Earth Thursday for at least another day, giving the crew a second bonus day in orbit.

Flight managers had planned on landing the shuttle Wednesday, but thick clouds moved over Central Florida just about the time a decision needed to be made to fire Endeavour's braking rockets and leave orbit. The astronauts reopened the ship's payload bay doors and prepared for a second landing attempt Thursday afternoon.

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"We'll try to bring you home," flight director Wayne Hale told the crew Thursday morning, "but only if we can do so safely."

Hale and his team scrutinized weather reports while the crew waited in orbit for a decision. Hale called off the effort just before 11 a.m., seeing no break in the clouds.

"We are going to call off any deorbit attempts for today," astronaut Duane Carey in Mission Control radioed to the commander Jim Wetherbee.

The shuttle has enough supplies to stay in orbit until Sunday. The next landing opportunity will be at the Kennedy Space Center at 1:57 p.m. ET on Friday. NASA was not planning to staff its backup landing facility at Edwards Air Force Base in California until Saturday, if needed.

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