Endeavour astronauts received the go ahead to end the 16-day mission which aimed to make more living space on the International Space Station. The landing was scheduled by the U.S. space agency NASA for this afternoon, 1:19 p.m. EST, 1819 UTC, at the Kennedy Space Center in the Atlantic Coast state of Florida.

All the astronauts need now are good weather conditions, but, according to the latest meteorological forecasts, their out of luck. Weather experts forecasted strong crosswinds and possibly thunderstorms today - not to mention moderate turbulence - and on Monday it’s expected to get even worst. If needed, Endeavour’s landing could be diverted to in the Pacific Coast state of California, where the conditions might be better.

"It looks real nice out there [Edwards Air Force Base]," Mission Control radioed.

NASA intends to make no more than three landing attempts on Sunday afternoon before delaying the landing to Monday. The Endeavour crew members have supplies that could hold until Tuesday, but the space agency wants them on the ground no later than Monday.

The preferred landing site is in Florida because Endeavour is housed there and this would spare NASA some $1.8 million, the price of flying the space shuttle to Florida on the back of a 747 airliner.

The Endeavour crew successfully completed a list of projects the mission included. The list included four spacewalks to repair a solar panel. With this mission, NASA began working to double the crew capacity of the ISS from three to six by the middle of 2009.