With Hurricane Dean considered hardly any threat to Mission Control, Endeavour's astronauts left the international space station a day early and inspected their ship one final time to make sure it is safe for re-entry. NASA is shooting for a Tuesday landing, a day ahead of schedule, to avoid any disruptions to flight operations in case the formidable storm heads for Houston. As of Sunday afternoon, that looked extremely unlikely, but mission managers did not want to chance it. «There is still uncertainty with a storm like this, but right now it's looking pretty good from our standpoint,» said John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team. «The threat is certainly somewhat less than it was the last two days.» In preparation for Endeavour's fiery descent through the atmosphere, the astronauts surveyed the wings and nose, using a laser-tipped boom that hunted for possible micrometeorite damage, the Associated Press reported.
