STS-118
Report #24
Monday, August 20, 2007 - 4:00 a.m. CDT
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas

Endeavour astronauts are getting ready to come home.

The crew, Commander Scott Kelly, Pilot Charles Hobaugh, and Mission Specialists Tracy Caldwell, Rick Mastracchio, Dave Williams, Barbara Morgan and Alvin Drew, was awakened at 3:37 a.m. CDT by “Flying,” performed by the Long John Baldry Trio, a Canadian group. It was for Williams, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut.

Endeavour is about 68 miles behind the International Space Station, a distance increasing by about 4.5 miles each 91-minute orbit of the Earth. The two spacecraft spent almost nine days together before Endeavour undocked at 6:56 a.m. Sunday.

Crew members begin stowing items in Endeavour’s cabin about 6:40 a.m. Just after 6:50 a.m. Kelly, Hobaugh and Mastracchio will check out the shuttle flight control surfaces, the flaps and rudder. At about 8:10 a.m. they’ll test fire reaction control system thrusters. Starting 15 minutes later, all crew members will have a 30-minute deorbit briefing.

At 10:46 a.m. Kelly, Williams and Morgan will take a break to talk with Canadian schoolchildren from the La Ronge, Saskatchewan area. A little later Morgan and Drew will prepare the Spacehab module in the shuttle’s cargo bay for re-entry. The astronauts will have some time off late in their day.

Mission managers continue to monitor Hurricane Dean. Early Monday Dean, with winds near 150 mph, was about 150 miles southeast of Grand Cayman, moving west at about 20 mph.

Endeavour is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center at 11:32 a.m. CDT on Tuesday. White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico will not be called up for a possible Tuesday landing there. A decision on whether to call up Edwards AFB, Calif., is expected this morning.

Aboard the International Space Station, it’s a day off for Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Oleg Kotov and Clay Anderson

The next status report will be issued Monday evening or earlier if events warrant.