Atlantis to stay in orbit another day

Clouds over the runway at Kennedy Space Center

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (CNN) -- NASA postponed landing for the space shuttle Atlantis for a second day in a row on Monday because of clouds and crosswinds at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The five-member crew originally was scheduled to touch down Sunday after an 11-day mission that included installation of the international space station's science laboratory module, Destiny. But gusts up to 24 mph (39 km/h) forced NASA to postpone the landing.

There were two landing opportunities on Monday, but NASA waived off the crew both times because of weather conditions.

NASA said there were two opportunities to land at KSC on Tuesday and that the weather forecast was improving.

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The weather also was bad on Monday at the shuttle's primary backup landing site at Edwards Air Force Base in California, NASA said.

Atlantis has enough fuel, food and electrical power to stay aloft until Wednesday.

Mission highlights

• Atlantis' primary mission was the delivery of the U.S.- built Destiny science laboratory, which was installed and connected during three spacewalks. With the new addition, the space station Alpha became the roomiest spacecraft ever to fly, surpassing the Russian space station Mir.

• The third spacewalk marked a NASA milestone -- the 100th of the U.S space program. NASA estimates that 152 more spacewalks will be needed before construction is completed in 2006 on Alpha, a $100 billion undertaking of the United States, Russia, Canada, Europe and Japan.

• The spacewalkers also connected a docking port on the end of Destiny, which will be used in the future by shuttles arriving at the space station.

• The crews of Atlantis and Alpha moved 1.5 tons of equipment and supplies between the two spacecraft, including water, food, spare parts, a spare carbon dioxide-removal unit, a spare computer, clothes and DVDs.

• Atlantis is bringing back to Earth about 850 pounds (386 kilograms) of trash from Alpha, including used batteries, packing materials and empty food containers.

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