San Francisco (CA) – The space shuttle Endeavour successfully undocked from the
International Space Station (ISS) at 1:26 p.m. EDT. According to NASA,
the station was reoriented for undocking, while open docking latches
subsequently allowed Endeavour to drift free.
“After completing a fly-around of the space station, shuttle Endeavour will perform a maneuver to separate from the station,” NASA confirmed in a statement.
The space agency added that “[ISS] Commander Gennady Padalka and his crew will now turn their
attention to preparations for the arrival of the Progress 34 cargo
craft at 6:16 a.m. Wednesday.”
NASA also noted that the station’s carbon dioxide removal assembly was once again working in automatic mode following a software update that was uplinked by Mission Control on Monday.
While in orbit, the Endeavour crew participated in a number of spacewalks to complete construction of Japan’s Kibo laboratory and replaced batteries in the station’s solar power system. The mission was somewhat marred by a series of minor incidents, including multiple postponed launch dates, falling debris during liftoff, a broken, multi-million ISS toilet and a malfunctioning air-filtering system.
