This report was updated at 6:01 p.m. EDT.
HOUSTON — NASA's
shuttle Discovery and its seven-astronaut crew said "sayonara" to the International
Space Station (ISS) Wednesday to begin the trip home after delivering a new
Japanese lab to the orbiting outpost.
Discovery
undocked from the space station at 7:42 a.m. EDT (1142 GMT) after nine days of orbital
construction to install and outfit Japan's
billion-dollar Kibo laboratory.
"We wish them the best with their expedition and we hope we left them a
better, more capable space station than when we arrived," Kelly said of the
station's three-man crew, saying goodbye after delivering Japan's Kibo lab. "Sayonara."
Discovery
cast off from the station as the two spacecraft flew 214 miles (344 km) above
the southern Pacific Ocean, just east of Australia. The spacecraft is due to
land Saturday with Kelly, shuttle pilot Ken Ham and mission specialists Karen
Nyberg, Ronald Garan, Michael Fossum, Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and
returning station crew member Garrett Reisman of NASA.
Reisman is
returning to Earth after three months in space after turning his flight
engineer reins over U.S. astronaut Gregory Chamitoff, who launched aboard
Discovery May 31 and remained aboard the station today with two Russian crewmates.
"It was a
great adventure with all of you, an adventure of a lifetime," said Chamitoff,
who is beginning a six-month mission at the station. "We wish you guys a
terrific flight back, an awesome landing and look forward to seeing you on the
ground."
Reisman
told the station crew to feel free to dig into the stash of Snickers candy bars
he left behind, but was apparently too late.
"We found
those last night and have already broken into them," Chamitoff said.
Space station's
new "hope"
During
their nine days at the space station, Discovery installed
Japan's Kibo lab, added a storage room to the rooftop of the 37-foot
(11-meter) module and test drove the massive room's new robotic arm. Three
spacewalks were performed during the mission.
"This
mission has gone just phenomenally well so far," said Matt Abbott, NASA's lead
shuttle flight director for Discovery's flight, during a Tuesday briefing here
at the Johnson Space Center.
Built by
the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Kibo lab is the largest room
aboard the space station and leaves the orbiting outpost about 71 percent
complete, NASA officials said. It has two windows and its own small airlock to
provide access to an external experiment platform that is slated to launch
aboard a NASA shuttle next year.
Astronauts
delivered Kibo's
small storage room earlier this year during a March shuttle flight. A
smaller robotic arm, which will allow Kibo's main 33-foot (10-meter) limb to
manipulate experiments on the external platform, is also slated to fly next
year.
"I'm
looking at the next chance for our science work," said JAXA's deputy Kibo
operations manager Tetsuro Yokoyama, adding that first experiments aboard the
new lab are expected to begin in August.
A closer
look
Before departing
the station, shuttle pilot Ken Ham took the helm of Discovery to guide it
through a victory lap of sorts around the orbiting lab while his crewmates
snapped photographs of its exterior.
Known as a fly-around,
the maneuver allows astronauts to document changes in the station's appearance
while giving shuttle pilots a change to fly their spacecraft.
"This is a great
tradition that started somewhere back in the early days of rendezvous-type
missions with the space shuttle," Ham told reporters before flight. "And
whoever thought of it was brilliant."
Discovery's crew also conducted a five-hour inspection of the heat shield
panels along their shuttle's wing edges and nose cap. The inspections are now
standard since heat shield damage led to the loss of the shuttle Columbia and
its astronaut crew in 2003.
Discovery
launched without its own laser-tipped boom for heat shield inspections just
after liftoff and before landing because Japan's massive Kibo lab took up too
much room in cargo bay. Instead, astronauts retrieved an inspection boom left at
the station during a preview shuttle mission.
Abbott said
that a cursory inspection of Discovery using the limited reach of its own
robotic arm, as well as photographs of its heat shield taken before docking,
have shown no areas of concern for engineers back on Earth.
Today's
scan will provide a better view of the underside of Discovery's wing edges, with
engineers hoping to complete their analysis some time tomorrow, Abbott
said.
Meanwhile,
Discovery's crew is on track for its planned Saturday landing at NASA's Kennedy
Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Mission
Control here roused the astronauts early Wednesday with the song "Centerfield"
by John Fogerty, a tune selected for Ham by his wife Michelle.
"Girl, you
are my home, and all of us are going to start our journey home today," Ham told
his wife via Mission Control as the shuttle and space station zipped around the
planet at 17,500 mph (28,163 kph). "From my rough calculations, that's about a
million miles, but we're going really fast so we're on our way."
NASA is
broadcasting the Discovery's STS-124 mission live on NASA TV
on Saturday. Click here for
SPACE.com's shuttle mission updates and NASA TV feed.
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