Space shuttle Atlantis is set to touch down early on Thursday in Florida, bringing an end to NASA's 30-year shuttle programme.
Final inspections of the shuttle's heat shield, which protects the craft during its fiery entry into Earth's atmosphere, were completed on Wednesday and NASA said the shuttle was in good shape for landing.
The weather forecast was also "very favourable" at Kennedy Space Center, NASA said, with the shuttle expected to land at 5:56am local time (0956 GMT).
Atlantis, which has traveled over 200 million kilometres in its life-span, is scheduled to begin its deorbit burn at 4:49 am (0849 GMT) to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.
The craft has been cleared for deorbit burn, during which the engines will fire for just over three minutes in order to slow the shuttle down.
If conditions do not allow for the first attempt, a second opportunity for deorbit would begin at 6:25 am (1025 GMT) with the landing at 7:32 am (1132 GMT).
The four-astronaut crew, who have spent 13 days in space, were awoken at 9:29 pm on Wednesday (0129 GMT Thursday) to the sound of "God Bless America", having left the International Space Station earlier in the day
On Wednesday, pilot Doug Hurley said they were anxious to celebrate the landing with the shuttle's on-the-ground crew.
"We're very excited about seeing those folks ... to share the memories of the mission with them and once again just convey how proud we are of them and what they've done over this 30-year programme," he said.
End of an era
Atlantis' landing will end an era of US dominance in human space exploration, leaving Russia as the sole taxi to the International Space Station until a replacement US capsule can be built by private industry.
Thursday's landing also comes 42 years after US astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to step foot on the moon in the Apollo 11 mission.
"Forty-two years ago today, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and I consider myself fortunate that I was there to actually remember the event," Chris Ferguson, the Atlantis commander, said to mission control, recalling the images of July 20, 1969.
"It is kind of interesting to be here on the final night of the shuttle mission. We don't quite know what to think. We are just trying to take it all in."
Over the course of the programme, five NASA space shuttles - Atlantis, Challenger, Columbia, Discovery and Endeavour - have comprised a fleet designed as the world's first reusable space vehicles.
The first shuttle flight to space lifted off April 12, 1981.
Challenger and Columbia were destroyed in accidents that killed their crews, leaving only three in the space-flying fleet and Enterprise, a prototype that never flew in space.
The remaining quartet will become museum pieces in the coming months.
Critics have assailed the US space agency for lacking a focus with the space shuttle gone and no next-generation human spaceflight programme to replace it.
The astronaut corps now numbers 60, compared to the 128 employed in 2000, and thousands of people are being laid off from Kennedy Space Center.
But NASA chiefs say future missions to deep space should revive hope in the US programme.
"We have just not done a good job of telling our story. NASA is very busy," Charles Bolden, the space agency's administrator, said. "The president said to us, 2025 for an asteroid and 2030 to Mars. We have a lot of work to do ahead."
NASA flight director Tony Ceccacci said his team was just trying to keep emotions at bay and focus on getting the shuttle home safely.
"We have a motto in the mission control center that flight controllers don't cry, so we are going to make sure that we keep to that."
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