The space shuttle Endeavour returned to Earth last night after a very successful 16-day mission. Although the landing was scheduled at 7:05 p.m. EDT, 33 minutes before sundown at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, due to last minute weather modifications, namely cloud formations, the ship touched the ground a bit later than expected, at 8:40 p.m.

The seven crew members have had a busy couple of weeks, as they had to add a new room to the international space station, assembly a robot, inspect a solar-wing joint which seemed to be jammed and drop off a shuttle inspection boom. In all, the mission was a complete success; everything was carried out perfectly.

"If you look around, there really isn't, any more, a U.S. human spaceflight program or a Russian human spaceflight program. There is a world human spaceflight program, centered around the building and then later utilization of the international space station. And we hope when we get that under our belt, this partnership will return to the moon and later go on to Mars," NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said, according to SPACEFLIGHT NOW. The number of nations that came together in the making of this project has moved up to 15.

The following flight, scheduled for August, will be a repair mission to the ailing Hubble Space Telescope.