The crew awoke from their second sleep period, earlier than planned. Preparations for return to Earth began with breakfast. Stowing of cabin items, flight control system checkout, data processing system reconfigurations, and then ejection suit donning followed. In Houston the Crimson team headed by their Flight Director Don Puddy came on duty in FCR 1 for the mission's final shift. His CAPCOM was astronaut Joe Allen with Rick Hauck assisting. Payload bay door closing was a critical milestone to ensure vehicle structural and thermal integrity for re-entry. If power closing had failed, Crippen was trained to conduct a one-man extravehicular activity (EVA) to manually winch them closed. With cabin switch positions verified, the crew strapped into their ejection seats. Meanwhile, JSC pilots Charlie Hayes and Ted Mendenhall were airborne over California's Edwards Air Force Base area in a Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA) performing a final check of landing weather conditions.