Commander Eileen Collins and Pilot James Kelly both said they had no worries about the scheduled pre-dawn landing in Florida, adding that Discovery was in great shape.

The two on Sunday tested the systems that will be used for re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, as their five crewmates packed up in preparation for the critical phase of the mission.

Managers of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration hailed what they said was the complete success of the first space shuttle flight since the February 1, 2003 Columbia disaster.

Despite the optimism, Discovery will be grounded with the rest of the fleet once it returns to Earth because the flight demonstrated the US space agency had failed to fix the problem that doomed Columbia.

The mission was largely designed to test changes made to the shuttle since the Columbia disaster, including improvements meant to prevent insulation foam from breaking off upon launch.

"We have definitely accomplished our mission objectives," Collins told NBC television in one of several interviews with US networks that NASA broadcast live on Sunday.

Crew members said their thoughts would be with the seven astronauts who lost their lives when Columbia burst into flames just minutes ahead of planned landing.

But Collins stressed that the Discovery crew will concentrate on getting home safely.

"We're going to have thoughts about Columbia, but we'll be very focused on the job at hand," she told CBS.

When they gave the green light for Discovery's landing, NASA managers said a tear on the cockpit's thermal blanket should not compromise the shuttle's safety as it re-enters the atmosphere.

They also said the orbiter suffered no significant damage when foam insulation fell off its external fuel tank as the shuttle blasted into orbit on July 26.

The same problem doomed Columbia, as the debris hit the orbiter's left wing, causing a crack that eventually allowed superheated gases to penetrate the structure upon re-entry into the atmosphere.

The critical re-entry stage begins a little over one hour before landing.

As it drops through the atmosphere, Discovery will effectively become an unpowered sailplane, and will slash its speed from nearly 29,000 kilometers per hour (18,000 mph) to about 350 kph (220 mph) when its rear wheels hit the tarmac.

In the final minutes before touchdown, Discovery will fly over Central America, the Gulf of Mexico and Cuba before making a loop over the Atlantic as it heads to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.

Weather forecasts were favorable for Monday's planned 4:46 amtouchdown at KSC, but NASA said that if needed, the landing could be postponed to 6:22 am

Should Monday's touchdown be scrubbed, Discovery has until Wednesday to land, either at the Florida seashore space center or at an alternate landing strip in California or New Mexico.

The mission initially had been scheduled to last 12 days, but an extra day was added on so the crew could transfer as much material and provisions as possible to the International Space Station (ISS), amid uncertainty over the date of the next shuttle flight.

The crew also retrieved waste and equipment to clear out space in the cramped orbiting lab.

During the mission, Stephen Robinson became the first astronaut to carry out a spacewalk under the shuttle, to extract two protruding pieces of fiber that risked overheating during re-entry.

In another two spacewalks, Robinson and Japanese teammate Soichi Noguchi tested repair techniques adopted after the Columbia tragedy, and replaced one of the space station's four gyroscopes.

"It's been a great trip and we'll come back with a lot of stories," Noguchi told the CBS network.

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