Atlantis heading for California

A convoy of NASA vehicles waits for Atlantis at Edwards Air Force Base on Tuesday

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, California (CNN) -- Thick clouds over the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday forced NASA to abandon plans to land the space shuttle Atlantis in Florida and to move the landing to Edwards Air Force Base in California.

"The weather just didn't cooperate today with the clouds," said NASA commentator Kyle Herring. "The cloud cover and the approaching clouds from the southeast did not offer a very clear view on final approach with the shuttle training aircraft."

NASA's weather forceaster also amended the forecast to include a chance of rain within 30 miles of the shuttle landing facility.

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Landing at Edwards is scheduled for 3:33 p.m. EST.

The 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.

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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