"You have given a new meaning to higher education," joked astronaut Chris Ferguson, as he welcomed back the five-man, two-woman crew including Endeavour astronaut Barbara Morgan, the first teacher in space.

The Endeavour sailed back to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, amid blue skies, touching down at 12:32 pm (1632 GMT).

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration had cut short the shuttle's mission to the International Space Station (ISS) by a day, fearing the mission control center in Houston, Texas, could be hit by Hurricane Dean, now pounding Mexico.

NASA officials also breathed a sigh of relief at Endeavour's safe landing, after the shuttle sustained damage shortly after take-off on August 8.

A piece of foam that broke off the external fuel tank, possibly accompanied by some ice, hit the belly near the landing gear hatch 58 seconds after liftoff, leaving a small gash.

But the US space agency decided against carrying out risky repairs to the shuttle's heat shield, calculating after three days of thermal and aerodynamic testing that it would hold up to the strains of re-entry to Earth.

Safety has been a big concern since 2003 when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry due to a damaged thermal protection system. All seven astronauts died and missions were put on hold for two and a half years.

Among the Endeavour's returning crew was Morgan, who at the start of the mission, flanked by crewmates Alvin Drew and Dave Williams, gave a 25-minute lesson in zero-gravity to Idaho school children.

"Astronauts and teachers actually do the same thing. We explore, we discover and we share," she told the class via videolink. "Those are absolutely wonderful jobs."

Morgan, now 55, trained as understudy to fellow teacher Christa McAuliffe in the 1980s as the NASA hoped that sending a teacher into space would fire the imaginations of millions and keep up support for its shuttle program.

But McAuliffe never made it to space. The Challenger shuttle exploded shortly after take-off in 1986, killing all seven people on board.

In its nine days at the space station, the Endeavour crew and a US astronaut posted at the ISS, Clayton Anderson, made four spacewalks, installing a mechanical truss on the orbiting laboratory and fixing one of the gyroscopes that keeps it stable. They also delivered 2.7 tonnes of supplies.

The ISS is a key stepping stone for preparing manned missions to Mars. NASA plans at least 12 more shuttle missions to finish the 100-billion-dollar station by 2010.

Welcoming the Endeavour home, NASA administrator Mike Griffin pointed to the success of the agency in assembling the International Space Station, which is now almost 60 percent complete.

"This is one of the great accomplishments of mankind," Griffin said.

Subtantial additions are to be made to the orbiting laboratory in the next few months with new lab segments from Europe and Japan to be added, along with a new node module.

Kennedy Space Center Launch Director Mike Leinbach said Endeavour came through reentry in good shape. "It looked almost like a pristine vehicle," he said.

It was NASA's second mission of the year, and came after a series of embarrassing scandals including an astronaut charged with plotting against a love rival and reports of others turning up drunk for flights.

NASA will however not launch the next two shuttles planned in October and December of this year until it has fixed the source of the foam problem, even if that means delaying the launches, shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said.

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