Endeavour's crew is awake and at work on the day before landing.
The seven astronauts will spend part of the day packing up and checking out the systems critical to tomorrow's re-entry and landing. They'll also get some off duty time and conduct one last educational event with the Canadian Space Agency.
The plan heading into tomorrow is to attempt to land at Kennedy Space Center. The first de-orbit opportunity would bring Endeavour into the Shuttle Landing Facility at 12:31 p.m.
As long as nothing changes with Hurricane Dean, which now appears on course for central Mexico, mission managers aim to try to land only at Kennedy on Tuesday. If there is any increasing threat from Dean, which could prompt an evacuation of the Mission Control Center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, NASA will go to a backup plan developed over the weekend.
The goal would be to get Endeavour back to Earth somewhere on Tuesday, maximizing the time available to JSC workers to go take care of their families.
The weather looks favorable for a landing in Florida on Tuesday, deputy shuttle program manager John Shannon said. So he was optimistic on Sunday.
IMAGE NOTE: Click to enlarge the Associated Press screen grab from NASA TV. It shows Endeavour mission specialist Barbara Morgan and pilot Charlie Hobaugh preparing orbiter systems for atmospheric reentry and landing on Tuesday.
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