Story Continues BelowIts arrival heralded by trademark twin sonic booms that rolled over central Florida as the ship approached the landing site, commander George Zamka flew the orbiter around a large lefthand turn above KSC and lined Endeavour with the runway at the Shuttle Landing Facility for a perfect landing at 10:20:21 p.m. EST as pilot Terry Virts deployed an auxiliary parachute from the tail of the the orbiter.

Almost two minutes later, the shuttle rolled to a stop and Zamka radioed to mission control in Houston, "Houston, Endeavour. Wheels stopped," to signify the official end of the STS-130 mission.

"Roger wheels stopped, Endeavour. Welcome home," astronaut CAPCOM Rick Sturckow replied. "Congratulations to you and the crew on an outstanding mission, installing the Tranquility node and opening up the cupola's windows to the world."

Endeavour's landing was uncertain for most of the day due to a frontal system that pushed thick clouds over the Kennedy Space Center area. However, the clouds cleared enough by the time the go/no-go decision had to be made for the deorbit firing of the orbital maneuvering system engines on the first landing opportunity of the day. With the final "go" from Entry Flight Director Norm Knight in mission control, Zamka and Virts fired the twin engines at 9:14 p.m. EST to begin the hourlong descent through the atmosphere and landing.

Endeavour's mission began on February 8 with a middle-of-the-night liftoff from Launch Complex 39-A, 5 miles away from the landing site. The shuttle completed 217 orbits of Earth spanning 5.6 million miles during its 13 day, 18 hour, 6 minute and 24 second long mission.

About an hour after landing, the Endeavour's crew, mission specialists Kathryn Hire, Robert Behnken, Nicholas Patrick and Stephen Robinson, in addition to Zamka and Virts, climbed out of the shuttle and were joined by NASA officials for the traditional walkaround and postflight inspection of Endeavour.

Before leaving the runway and heading to crew quarters in the KSC industrial area, Zamka stopped to make a few comments on NASA Television.

"STS-130 is mission complete. We're safe on deck here at Kennedy Space Center and that's due to the work of a lot of people," Zamka said. "We had a great team. We had tremendous hardware to bring up. Node 3 was pristine; cupola was beautiful. And Endeavour, my goodness, what a machine. She was perfect throughout the flight and we brought her back safe and sound due to a great mission control team. So thanks to all who were involved."

With the successful delivery of Node 3 "Tranquility" and the seven-windowed cupola, the International Space Station is now 98% complete in terms of volume and 90% finished by mass. The total pressurized volume of the complex is 28.947 cubic feet, with 12,420 feet of that total being habitable volume. The station's total mass is 799,000 pounds.

The five astronauts onboard the station wasted no time putting the new module to use. Shortly after the node was opened for business, a water processing unit, oxygen generator, CO2 scrubber, toilet and the COLBERT treadmill were moved into Tranquility and their final locations for the remainder of the ISS lifetime.

STS-130 was Endeavour's next-to-last mission. NASA's youngest orbiter will make its final flight in July. Atlantis also has just one more mission while Discovery will make two more flights. All in all, the mood inside the shuttle program is taking on a bittersweet tone as the clock ticks down to the retirement of the fleet.

"I got to watch a lot of the folks out on the runway tonight just kind of stand there and look up at Endeavour and think about the majesty of that ship and its next to last flight," KSC Shuttle Launch Director Mike Leinbach said during the postflight press conference. "There's a whole series of 'lasts' coming up. The people fall in love with the machine. It's going to be hard to let them go, but we've been given our direction. We're mature about it. We're professional about it, so we're going to process and fly that last mission... and move on."

Meanwhile, the orbiter Discovery is scheduled to move from its hangar in the Orbiter Processing Facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building for its penultimate mission. STS-131 is currently targeted for launch in the early morning hours of April 5 to deliver another load of science equipment and spare parts to the space station as its final outfitting continues.

(The Spacearium / SpaceflightNews.net)