The crew of the shuttle Atlantis inspected the craft's heat shields Monday ahead of its descent to Earth at the end of its final voyage into space, NASA said.
The inspection, which lasted several hours, was completed at 1217 GMT, the space agency said in a statement posted on its website.
Using a high definition camera and laser at the end of a 15-meter-long (50-foot-long) robotic arm, the astronauts examined the leading edges of the shuttle's wings and the nose cones for signs of damage from micrometeorites or orbiting debris.
Temperatures rise to around 1,500 degrees Celsius (2730 degrees Fahrenheit) on the wings' leading edges and nose cap during the shuttle's re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere.
"Managers and engineers in Mission Control will review the data today and tomorrow to validate the heat shield's integrity," NASA said.
The shuttle is scheduled to return to Earth on Wednesday, landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after a 12-day resupply mission to the International Space Station.
The shuttle uncoupled from the orbiting space laboratory on Sunday after successfully delivering tons of supplies.
The trip back to Earth caps the 25-year career of one of NASA's iconic spacecrafts, which has logged some 115 million miles (185 million kilometers).
Only two more shuttle launches remain — one in September for Discovery and the final blast off for Endeavour in November — before the curtain falls on this era of human spaceflight.
The United States will then have to rely on Russia to take astronauts to the station aboard three-seater Soyuz spacecraft until a new fleet of commercial "space taxis" is operational.
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