The US space shuttle Endeavour has landed safely at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after a successful mission to the International Space Station.
The 16-day mission saw the crew of seven install the final segment of Japan's $2.4bn Kibo laboratory, a platform for telescopes and other science experiments.
They also delivered spare parts and replaced batteries to keep the solar-powered space station running during night-time passes around Earth.
NASA is stocking the $100bn station, a project of 16 nations, in preparation for the shuttle fleet's retirement next year after seven more missions.
Using a Japanese-built robot arm, astronauts placed three devices on the new platform: an X-ray telescope, a monitor to measure electromagnetic fields around the station and a communications antenna for a Japanese satellite network.
One Endeavour astronaut Timothy Kopra remained behind on the space station, taking over the flight engineer's post previously held by Japan's Koichi Wakata, who returned home aboard the shuttle after four-and-a-half months in orbit.
