CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The astronauts on NASA's next-to-last shuttle trip floated beyond the International Space Station on Sunday then made that hatch powering them, following one remaining circular regarding comfortable would like and embraces.
All that stayed had been space shuttle Endeavour's undocking late Sunday nighttime and its two-day getaway home.
Shuttle commander Mark Kelly claimed your 1 1/2 days regarding synovial flight went well. He was the last to depart the room station, constant for a few seconds with all the about three breathing space section residents.
"We're looking forward to getting home," Kelly said, "and we are likely to leave all these individuals to some serenity plus calm plus certainly not disrupt their breathing space section any more."
"It had been fantastic viewing a person guys," claimed rail station homeowner Ronald Garan Jr. "We were being just in amazement within your finely oiled machine."
The station's skipper, Russian Andrey Borisenko, desired the particular half a dozen shuttle astronauts a "soft landing."
Endeavour will probably come back to Florida in the pre-dawn hours connected with Wednesday, not to soar inside place again. The shuttle might be retired to some museum inside California next this 16-day mission, its 25th.
On their ultimate journey, Endeavour sent a $2 billion cosmic ray detector which will stay around the place section for your up coming decade.
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer already is actually collecting twenty-five thousand for you to 40 thousand cosmic particles every day acceptable with analysis. It's trying to find antimatter plus dark matter, and experts hope that conclusions will shed light on the particular beginning from the universe.
Kelly in addition to his team also provided space train station using a principle complete associated with quit parts and an extension boom with regard to future repair work. The boom, mounted Friday to the final spacewalk from the mission, marked this finish associated with the actual U.S. fraction of the place station.
The astronauts additionally did wonders on some of the important life-support devices inside, in a great energy to depart the orbiting outpost throughout the best possible shape to the shuttle-less a long time ahead.
Astronauts Mike Fincke and Gregory Chamitoff who put in a few months being with space section with years previous pretended these people failed to need to depart Sunday morning. They have been ripped to the shuttle by simply his or her crewmates. Garan joined in within the joke, waving goodbye since in case he were heading out aboard Endeavour as well. He's simply a couple weeks towards his / her five-month section stay.
All told, this hatches concerning the two spacecraft have been amenable 11 days.
Only another shuttle flight is always intended for NASA.
Atlantis will blast off July seven that has a load regarding area section stocks in order to shut out and about that 30-year shuttle program.
Kelly, meanwhile, could are in possession of to look without each day calls to his / her wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. He used the living space station's Internet cellular phone to keep abreast of her condition, and NASA perhaps negotiated a new videoconference concerning the two.
Giffords can be going through rehabilitate in Houston for just a gunshot wound towards head. She ended up being critically wounded Jan. 8 throughout Tucson, Ariz., by carrying out a political event. She attended Kelly's launch May 16 and, two days to weeks later, underwent skull reconstruction.
She just isn't anticipated to be at Kennedy Space Center with regard to Endeavour's homecoming given your inconvenient hour: 2:35 a.m.
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