Endeavour's astronauts spent the morning testing systems that will play a crucial role in atmospheric reentry and landing, and no significant problems were uncovered in the process.
Aiming to land at 12:32 p.m. Tuesday here at Kennedy Space Center, the five-man, two-woman crew conducted a hot fire of the orbiter's 44 nose-and-tail steering jets and also tested the ship's aerosurfaces.
The astronauts also are packing up their spaceship. A laptop computer used to gather data from accelerometers and temperature sensors inside the wings of the shuttle is being disassembled, and an exercise bike on the middeck of the ship's crew cabin is being stowed for entry.
You can follow along with mission operations here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the link below the Mission Webcast headline to launch our NASA TV viewer. Start-up time is about 20 seconds.
The latest version of the STS-118 NASA TV schedule -- Rev Q -- is here: tvsked_revq.pdf.
IMAGE NOTE: Click to enlarge the Associate Press screen grab from NASA TV. It shows Endeavour commander Scott Kelly (right) and mission specialist Tracy Caldwell working on the flight deck of the shuttle.
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