With their primary mission successfully completed, the Endeavour crew enjoyed a more relaxed sixth day in orbit Saturday, overseeing a variety of science experiments.
The astronauts Thursday captured the European Retrievable Carrier, a free-flying science platform that had been in orbit for 10 months. A spacewalk Friday by astronauts G. David Low and Peter "Jeff" Wisoff capped the retrieval with an easy repair job to nudge the spacecraft's radio antennas closed.During the 5 1/2-hour outing in the cargo bay, Low and Wisoff also practiced maneuvers planned for the Hubble Space Telescope repair mission, scheduled for December.
"It was one of the most exciting things I've ever done in my life," Low said Saturday during an in-orbit interview with Cable News Network. "The best thing of all was the spectacular view you get out there."
Low said the only physically tiring part of the spacewalk was when he was pushing on the EURECA antennas, which he likened to "doing an isometric exercise for two minutes."
Endeavour commander Ronald Grabe, who joined Low for the interview, said that while the spacewalk and satellite retrieval were among the more dramatic aspects of the shuttle program, its basic mission is scientific research, something that should be continued on a permanent international space station.
"It's very important for the United States to continue the space station. That's where our future is in the near-term. I don't think it's so important which space station we build at this point, but rather that we get on with it," said Grabe, who is making his fourth space flight.
While Endeavour circled Earth this week, the space station escaped by one vote a move to kill the project in the U.S. House of Representatives.