U.S. shuttle Discovery undocks from space station
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After over one week together in orbit, U.S. space shuttle Discovery undocked from the International Space Station on Monday morning.
According to NASA, the undocking took place at 7:00 a.m. EST (1200 GMT) while the spacecraft were 220 miles above the western Pacific, northeast of New Guinea.
At 7:29 a.m. EST (1229 GMT), Pilot Eric Boe flew the shuttle one lap around the station to document its new configuration that includes the Permanent Multipurpose Module and External Logistics Carrier-4 that Discovery delivered. Shuttle crew members will take photos of the station during the fly around.
Discovery lifted off on Feb. 24 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida and arrived the space station on Feb. 26. This is the 39th flight for Discovery, the first of the three surviving space shuttles to be retired this year.
During the mission, the astronauts installed a spare closet module on the space station, completed some important repairs and delivered the first humanoid robot, though it will need more time to be assembled and made operational.
Discovery and its crew of astronauts are expected to land on Wednesday. It will be retired after this mission and sent to a museum.
There were initially five space shuttles in the fleet -- Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff in 1986 and Columbia disintegrated on its way back to Earth in 2003. Endeavour is set for its final takeoff on April 19 and a last mission for Atlantis is scheduled for June 28, though funding for Atlantis remains in question.
The sixth shuttle, Enterprise, did test flights in the atmosphere but was never flown into space. It is already on display at a museum outside Washington.
The 30-year-old shuttle program is ending due to high operating costs. The Obama administration wants to spur private companies to get into the space taxi business, freeing NASA to focus on deep space exploration and new technology development.
When the U.S. space shuttle program officially ends later this year, the Russian space program's Soyuz capsule will be the only method for transporting astronauts to and from the station.
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