The Discovery shuttle's six astronauts were given Thursday off to admire the view of Earth below before preparing to return home from an intense mission focused on improving flight safety.
The two women and four men who will fly back to Earth on Monday brought with them critical cargo for the International Space Station (ISS) and tested repair techniques created after the 2003 Columbia disaster.
"The crew is going to get a well deserved day off," lead flight director Tony Ceccacci told reporters at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
The astronauts, who are about 350 kilometers (220 miles) above Earth aboard the ISS, will be "looking out the window and enjoying the day on orbit," Ceccacci said. The spacecraft circles the planet every 90 minutes.
The crew delivered food, clothes and research equipment to the ISS in just the second shuttle mission since the Columbia accident.
Astronauts Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum successfully performed three key spacewalks, spending more than 21 hours outside, to test shuttle repair techniques and fix equipment critical to the construction of the ISS.
Leading up to Discovery's July 4 launch, the focus had been on the shuttle's troublesome external fuel tank, whose perplexing loss of foam insulation during lift-off caused Columbia's demise.
The debris pierced the heat shield, causing the shuttle to break apart as it returned to Earth in February 2003. All seven astronauts died.
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