Gliding through the overcast conditions, space shuttle Endeavour, piloted by Shuttle commander Mark Polansky, safely touched down at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, at 10:48 a.m. EDT (1448 GMT). The shuttle's landing came after an over 100,000 feet descent through the Earth's atmosphere, at speeds more than 1,000 miles per hour!

It was on July 15 that Endeavor had taken off, after days of delays resulting from mechanical flaws and weather-related problems. It reached the ISS two days later to commence its ambitious construction flight. The seven-member shuttle crew, along with the six-man station staff together constituted the historic biggest-ever 'crowd' aboard any one spacecraft.

As Polansky and his six crewmates left the runway of the shuttle's home port in Cape Canaveral, - after successfully completing a 16-day space mission concerning Japan's $1 billion Kibo science laboratory at the International Space Station (ISS) - Polansky remarked: "It's a great day to be here at Kennedy."

The installation of Kibo laboratory - the external platform for supporting space experiments - which included the addition of three initial payloads, came about after five spacewalks and the use of three robotic arms.

Commenting on the completion of the Endeavor mission, Bill Gerstenmaier - NASA's space operations chief - said: "I can't say enough how great this mission was. The crew and the ground teams pulled it all together."