Atlantis crew ready to return to earth

2009-05-22 07:22:05 GMT2009-05-22 15:22:05 (Beijing Time) Xinhua English

BEIJING, May 22 (Xinhuanet)-- The crew of space shuttle Atlantis are preparing to return to earth Friday after successfully fixing the Hubble Space Telescope.

According to the U.S. space agency, there are two chances that the shuttle will land at Cape Canaveral, Florida either at 10:00 am (1400 GMT) or 11:39 am (1539 GMT) Friday.

If bad weather hampers either of those opportunities, the shuttle will try to land Saturday in Florida or at Edwards Air Force Base, California, the space agency said.

Cloudy skies and stormy weather could yet pose a problem for Friday's landing attempts, NASA has said.

The shuttle has enough supplies to remain in orbit until Monday.

Atlantis and its seven-strong crew are returning from a successful 11-day mission to repair and restore the Hubble space telescope to allow it to continue its ground-breaking exploration of the universe for at least another five years.

(Agencies)

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