Imagery

From the Gallery: Expedition Three Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov, now an STS-108 crewmember, bids farewell to the International Space Station from Endeavour's aft flight deck.

STS-108 Swaps International Space Station Crews
The final shuttle flight of 2001 came to an end when Space Shuttle Endeavour landed at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., at 11:55 a.m. CST (1755 GMT) Dec. 17, 2001.

STS-108 was the 12th shuttle flight to visit the International Space Station andthe first since the installation of the Russian airlock called Pirs on the station. Endeavour delivered the Expedition Four crew -- Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch -- to the orbital outpost. The Expedition Three crew -- Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin -- returned to Earth on Endeavour.

While at the station, the crew conducted one spacewalk and attached the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the station so that about 2.7 metric tons (3 tons) of equipment and supplies could be unloaded. The crew later returned Raffaello to Endeavour's payload bay for the trip home.

A New York Police Department cap rests on the PAO console in Mission Control.

Flags for Heroes and Families
During STS-108, NASA honored the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by sending nearly 6,000 small U.S. flags into orbit on Space Shuttle Endeavour as part of the "Flags for Heroes and Families" campaign. The flags were to be given to survivors and the families of the victims of the attacks in New York City, the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.

Various consoles and other areas in the Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, displayed flags and other artifacts that paid tribute to the heroes of September 11 and subsequent actions by military personnel as well as recognizing the memories of victims.

STARSHINE 2

STARSHINE 2 rises from its canister in Endeavour's payload bay Dec. 16, 2001, to begin its eight-month orbital journey.

Endeavour Deploys STARSHINE Satellite
The Student-Tracked Atmospheric Research Satellite for Heuristic International Networking Experiment, also called STARSHINE 2, was deployed from Endeavour's payload bay one day before landing.

Project STARSHINE is an ongoing program to release beachball-sized, mirror-covered satellites into orbit, where they last for about eight months. During the satellite's mission, sunlight reflecting from the mirrors is visible to the unaided eye during morning and evening twilight hours.

Teams of elementary, middle and high school students visually track the satellite and note the times that it passes between selected pairs of targeted stars. Calculations based on the tracking data will be used to determine atmosphere density at various altitudes.