CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of seven astronauts ended a 16-day journey of more than 6.5 million miles with a 10:48 a.m. EDT landing Friday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. During the flight, Endeavour delivered the final piece of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory and a new crew member to the International Space Station.

Endeavour’s mission included five spacewalks and installation of two platforms outside the Japanese module. One platform remained on the station and serves as a type of porch for experiments that require direct exposure to space. The other was an experiment storage pallet that returned aboard the shuttle. During the mission, Kibo’s robotic arm transferred three experiments from the palette to the platform. The station now is 83 percent complete and has a mass of more than 685,000 pounds.

“It’s a great day to be here at (Kennedy),” Commander Mark Polansky said as the crew members prepared to depart the runway. “What a fantastic mission.”

Polansky was joined by Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Christopher Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Dave Wolf, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette and Tim Kopra. Kopra remained aboard the station, replacing Flight Engineer and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who returned to Earth on Endeavour after more than four months on the station.

When Endeavour’s seven astronauts joined the six resident Expedition 20 crew members aboard the space station, a record number of 13 people were aboard the orbiting laboratory. All five partner agencies were represented.

A welcome ceremony for the crew’s return to Houston will be held at Ellington Field’s NASA Hangar 990 at 5 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Aug. 1. The public is invited to attend. The crew’s return will be broadcast on NASA Television’s video file Monday.

STS-127 was the 127th space shuttle mission, the 23rd flight for Endeavour and the 29th shuttle visit to the station.

With Endeavor and its crew safely home, the stage is set for the launch of STS-128, which is targeted for Aug. 25. Discovery’s 13-day flight will deliver a new crew member and 33,000 pounds of equipment to the station. The equipment includes science and storage racks, a freezer to store research samples, a new sleeping compartment and the COLBERT treadmill.

Space shuttle Endeavour will land at Kennedy Space Center within the hour.

Endeavour’s crew this morning fired the orbiter’s thrusters to complete its deorbit burn and begin the descent.

The shuttle is set to land at about 10:48 a.m. EDT.

HOUSTON — Leaving behind in orbit a new porch for the International Space Station, two pair of small research satellites, and a new space station resident, the crew of the Space Shuttle Endeavour is turning its attention toward home.

Endeavour is scheduled to land at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Friday with a touchdown at 10:48 a.m. EDT. The shuttle would begin its descent from orbit with a deorbit engine firing at 9:42 a.m. EDT. In preparation for that landing, Endeavour’s payload bay doors would be closed at 7:02 a.m. EDT. Weather conditions at Kennedy are forecast to be favorable for landing, although a slight chance of rain is possible.

A second opportunity exists for a landing in Florida on Friday, beginning with a deorbit engine firing at 11:17 a.m. EDT, leading to an 12:22 p.m. EDT touchdown. No other shuttle landing sites are being considered for a Friday landing. If weather prevents a landing Friday, alternate landing sites would be called up for Saturday?s landing opportunities.

Today, Endeavour Commander Mark Polansky and Pilot Doug Hurley checked out the systems the shuttle will use as it returns home, finding everything in excellent shape. The crew also deployed two pairs of small satellites from canisters in the shuttle?s payload bay. The first, called Dual RF Astrodynamic GPS Orbital Navigator Satellite (DRAGONSat), studies the independent rendezvous of spacecraft in orbit using Global Positioning Satellite data. The two satellites were designed and built by students at the University of Texas, Austin, and Texas A&M University, College Station.

The second pair of satellites, called Atmospheric Neutral Density Experiment-2 (ANDE-2), measure the density and composition of the rarified atmosphere 200 miles above the Earth?s surface.

Endeavour will bring home Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata, who has spent 138 days in space and was a member of three station expedition crews. NASA astronaut Tim Kopra launched aboard Endeavour and remains on the station as a resident.

Endeavour’s crew begins its sleep period at 6:03 p.m. EDT. The crew will awaken at 2:03 a.m. EDT Friday.

Space shuttle Endeavour’s crew spent the day inspecting the spacecraft’s heat shield one last time and began early preparations for Friday’s return home to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

With the International Space Station and its six-person crew slipping further and further behind following Wednesday’s undocking, Endeavour’s crew turned its attention to unlimbering the robot arm and boom extension. With its suite of sensitive instruments, the boom was used to scan the wing leading edges and nose cap for any sign of tiny impacts as part of a routine procedure to ensure the orbiter’s outer shield has a clean bill of health for reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

While imagery experts pore over the data sent down during the scan to evaluate the Thermal Protection System’s integrity, shuttle Commander Mark Polansky and the STS-127 crew will focus on packing up the shuttle and checking out its flight control systems and thruster jets Thursday morning.

Mission managers will be briefed on the Damage Assessment Team’s findings Thursday as well, but early indications are there were no impacts that would pose a concern for entry. The formal presentation to the Mission Management Team is set for 11 a.m. CDT.

On orbit, the crew will deploy two small research satellites and set up a special recumbent seat for Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata returning after 138 days in space (133 on the station).

The first half of the crew’s day Thursday will include the support of the entry team in Mission Control lead by Flight Director Bryan Lunney. The team will watch over the checkout of all vehicle systems to ensure they are healthy and ready to support landing of Endeavour after 16 days in space. Landing is scheduled for 9:48 a.m. CDT after 248 orbits of the Earth.

The seven crew members have adjusted their wake/sleep cycles to correspond with landing day activities and will be awakened at 1:03 a.m. CDT Thursday by Mission Control.

The record-size space crew of thirteen split up as Endeavour and the International Space Station undocked from each other at 12:26 p.m.

Commander Mark Polansky and the shuttle crew, Pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialists Chris Cassidy, Julie Payette, Tom Marshburn, Dave Wolf and Koichi Wakata boarded Endeavour to begin their trip home. Wakata spent 133 days onboard the space station.

After undocking, Hurley flew Endeavour around the station at a distance of 400 feet and completed a separation maneuver from the orbiting outpost at 2:09 p.m.

The shuttle crew will complete an inspection of Endeavour’s heat shield and test out its entry systems over the next two days, aiming for landing Friday morning at Kennedy Space Center.

The six-person Expedition 20 crew, including new member Tim Kopra, will turn its attention to another visiting spacecraft. The ISS Progress 34 supply vehicle is due to dock at the station Wednesday at 6:16 a.m. The crew also will continue on with research in the orbiting laboratory.

On its inaugural operational use, the Japanese robotic arm installed the first experiments and hardware on Kibo?s new porch at the International Space Station.

Station and space shuttle Endeavour crew members took turns operating the arm to move equipment from a Japanese payload carrier to the Japanese Exposed Facility outside Kibo. The operations were performed by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, Expedition 20 Flight Engineer Tim Kopra, shuttle Commander Mark Polansky, shuttle Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialist Julie Payette.

Although the robotic arm had been checked out previously, the operations ran long as the arm was put through its paces holding experiments and hardware for the first time. The initial movement was faster than expected so the arm was stopped and transitioned into a manual mode that was a bit slower moving.

All three experiments ? the Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image, Inter-orbit Communication System and Space Environment Data Acquisition Equipment-Attached Payload ? were installed on the Kibo exposed facility.

After the robotics operations, crew members took time to discuss their mission with reporters in North Carolina, Maine, Florida, Nevada and Texas.

The crew also prepared spacesuits and tools, and reviewed the updated procedures for the fourth spacewalk. Mission specialists Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn will swap all four of the remaining P6 Truss batteries on the fourth of five spacewalks, which is budgeted to last seven and a half hours.

Cassidy and Mission Specialist Dave Wolf completed two of the battery swaps on the third spacewalk, but had to end the excursion early because of rising carbon dioxide levels in Cassidy?s suit. A different carbon dioxide removal canister will be used in Cassidy?s suit Friday.

Inside, the crew transferred experiment samples to Endeavour?s high-tech freezer for return home. Tonight Cassidy and Marshburn will spend the night in the lower-pressure airlock to prepare for Friday?s spacewalk.

Spacewalkers Dave Wolf and Chris Cassidy wrapped up a five-hour, 59-minute spacewalk at 4:31 p.m. EDT. The spacewalk ended earlier than planned because of higher than normal carbon dioxide levels in Cassidy’s spacesuit.

The pair removed multilayer insulation from the Kibo module and readied the Japanese Exposed Section payloads for their transfer to the Exposed Facility on Thursday, but they were unable to replace all six of the original batteries on the International Space Station’s Port 6 truss 2B power channel. The remaining batteries will be replaced on a future spacewalk.

This was the third of five STS-127 spacewalks, the 128th in support of International Space Station assembly and maintenance, totaling 798 hours, 30 minutes. It was the 100th spacewalk out of space station airlocks and the 216th American spacewalk in history. It was Wolf’s seventh spacewalk, totaling 41 hours, 57 minutes and placing him 14th on the all-time list. It was Cassidy’s first excursion.

The combined efforts of the International Space Station and Space Shuttle Endeavour crews were successful in installing the Japanese Logistics Module-Exposed Section using two robotic arms.

Commander Mark Polansky and mission specialist Julie Payette operated the robotic arm aboard the space shuttle to pass the platform from Endeavour to Canadarm2 on the space station. Canadarm2 was operated by mission specialist Koichi Wakata and shuttle pilot Doug Hurley.

The Japanese Exposed Section was installed at about 9:30 a.m. The Japanese robotic arm on the station will be used Thursday to take experiments from that Exposed Section and install them on the new porch of the Kibo laboratory.

Endeavour’s crew enjoyed off-duty time this afternoon before undertaking preparations for Wednesday’s third spacewalk

Astronauts Dave Wolf and Chris Cassidy began preparations for their spacewalk Wednesday, which is scheduled to begin at 9:58 a.m. Wolf and Cassidy changed out a series of spacesuit batteries to prepare for their spacewalk.

Tonight they will sleep in the airlock where they will adjust to a lower pressure, going from 14.7 psi to 10 psi, to adapt for the conditions in their spacesuit. This spacewalk will be the third spacewalk of the mission and will focus on the installation of four of the six Port 6 (P6) Truss batteries.

Polansky, Hurley, Payette and Wolf took time to answer questions posed by visitors on YouTube and Twitter. Polansky is providing regular updates on the mission’s progress from space via Twitter at http://twitter.com/Astro_127.

HOUSTON – The crews aboard the International Space Station and space shuttle Endeavour honored the legacy of Apollo 11 by conducting a spacewalk on the same day that 40 years ago captured the world’s attention when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon for the first time.

The fifth day of the shuttle mission focused on the second of five planned spacewalks of the mission – this one performed by Dave Wolf and Tom Marshburn.

Mission Specialists Dave Wolf and Tom Marshburn performed the six hour, 53 minute extravehicular excursion to complete a number of station hardware installation tasks.

Exiting from the Quest Airlock at 10:27 a.m., Wolf removed three hardware spares – a Ku-Band Space-to-Ground Antenna, a Pump Module and a Linear Drive Unit, from an Integrated Cargo Carrier. With each spare in hand, Wolf rode the space station robotic arm to the P3 Truss where a stowage platform awaited. There he and Marshburn attached them for long-term storage.

Julie Payette and Doug Hurley operated the robotic arm. Marshburn mounted a grapple bar onto an ammonia tank assembly so that the next space shuttle crew of STS-128 can move the tank by robotic arm. Marshburn also attached two insulation sleeves for external power connectors to the Station to Shuttle Power Transfer System. Wolf and Marshburn completed most of the planned tasks, but deferred a video camera installation.

The spacewalk concluded at 5:20 p.m. CDT. It was Wolf’s sixth spacewalk and the first for Marshburn.

Expedition 20 commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Frank De Winne replaced components of the Waste Hygiene Compartment toilet in the Destiny laboratory. The system’s dose pump failed Sunday. After Padalka and De Winne replaced the separator pump, control panel and the COT, a container that holds liquid, the system was activated and performed normally.

Meanwhile, Tim Kopra continued with his familiarization of the space station, having recently replaced Koichi Wakata as an Expedition 20 Flight Engineer.

HOUSTON – The Space Shuttle Endeavour and International Space Station crews were successful in their robotic arm tasks on Sunday, but encountered a problem with one of the bathrooms on the station.

Robotic arm operators aboard Endeavour and the station installed the Integrated Cargo Carrier – Vertical Light Deployable, or ICC-VLD — a cargo pallet— on the port side of the space station’s mobile base system. Station arm operators Julie Payette and Tim Kopra finished the move at 11:55 a.m. CDT.

The pallet contains three hardware spares that spacewalkers Dave Wolf and Tom Marshburn will move to a stowage platform on the outside of the Port 3 truss during Monday’s spacewalk.

The Kibo robotic arm was commanded through a series of calibrations in preparation for later use in the mission, when Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency payloads will be transferred from the Exposed Section, another platform where the experiments are temporarily mounted, to the newly installed Exposed Facility for operation. The Exposed Facility was installed on the aft end of Kibo Saturday.

Wolf and Marshburn spent the remainder of their day preparing special tools, reviewing procedures and beginning their campout for the second spacewalk, which is set to start Monday at 10:28 a.m. CDT.

Meanwhile, station flight controllers and crew members spent part of the day troubleshooting a problem with the Waste and Hygiene Compartment, or WHC, the toilet in the U.S. Destiny module. The system’s dose pump failed after running for about 15 minutes Sunday. The pump introduces the correct amount of chemicals into the system to help separate liquids from solid waste. About six liters of pre-treated water may have flowed into the pump separator and other areas where it should not have, flooding the separator.

Astronauts Mike Barratt and Frank De Winne began work on the toilet to replace parts that likely were contaminated. The suspect dose pump and a control panel are also on tap for replacement to restore the toilet.

The WHC is one of two toilet systems aboard the space station. Temporarily, the six station crew members will use the facilities in the Russian Zvezda module while the seven astronauts will use the shuttle Waste Compartment System, or WCS, that is located in Endeavour’s middeck.

The temporary shutdown of the U.S. toilet on the station will not impact joint docked operations.

Shortly after 5 p.m. Canadian Space Agency Astronauts Bob Thirsk and Payette spoke with the Canadian Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear, Member of Parliament Steven Bleany and CSA President Steve MacLean. This mission marks the first time the pair of astronauts has been in space together at the same time.

The crew went to bed about 9:30 p.m. on Sunday and woke up at 5:33 a.m. on the 40th anniversary of the first landing by humans on the moon on Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969.