Endeavour Coming Home

Space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to land later this afternoon at Edwards AFB in southern California. Rough weather in Florida has precluded a return to the Kennedy Space Center.

Weather at the landing site has been a big factor throughout the shuttle program. The inability of the shuttle to deal with a range of weather conditions is one reason it never really had a chance to become the workhorse of the space program NASA originally envisioned. The new Orion spacecraft will have a different relationship with the weather, as it will fall to Earth under parachute; it will not fly through the atmosphere. So, if an Orion is returning from Earth orbit, bad weather over a landing area could still delay leaving orbit. However, if an Orion is returning from the Moon, once it leaves lunar orbit for the two day flight home, it probably will have relatively little ability to maneuver. Forecasting the weather two days out can still be tricky, so the Orion capsule needs a capacity to deal with rough weather the shuttle largely lacks.