CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Shuttle Atlantis departed the International Space Station Sunday, leaving behind three residents who now have an independent means of performing construction and repair work at the frontier outpost.
With the two ships flying in tandem 242 miles (387 kilometers) above the North Atlantic Ocean southeast of Newfoundland, shuttle pilot Charles Hobaugh gently eased Atlantis back away from the outpost at 12:54 a.m. EDT (0454 GMT).
Firing the shuttle's nose-and-tail steering thrusters, the former military test pilot then guided Atlantis on a victory lap around the towering 17-story station, which was a relatively small, vacant two-roomer just 12 months ago.
"It almost boggles the mind when you see it in the video, or the crew sees it out the window, how big this thing has gotten," said NASA flight director Paul Hill.
Live video beamed back from the shuttle showed the station's golden American solar arrays - which have a wingspan of 240 feet (73 meters) -- glimmering against the deep black space.
Other shots showed the newly installed Quest airlock mounted to the starboard side of the station's U.S. Unity module as the 132-ton complex soared over a cornflower blue Earth.
Said Atlantis mission specialist Michael Gernhardt: "We've got a really nice view out the window.""We're seeing some beautiful pictures," astronaut Cady Coleman added from NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston.
Coming 10 days after a July 12 launch, the shuttle's looping departure followed a weeklong flurry of assembly work that capped the first full phase of a $60 billion outpost construction project that involves 16 nations on four continents.
Being built by space agencies in the U.S., Russian, Canada, Japan, Europe and Brazil, the station a year ago consisted of just a Russian space tug and the Unity module, a Tinker Toy-like connection node that leads to all parts of the outpost.
Launched and linked in space in late 1998, those first two building blocks remained uninhabited for the better part of two years.
Long-delayed Russian crew quarters finally arrived at the station last July 26, and since then, visiting shuttle astronauts and two resident crews have mounted the first piece of the station's skeletal truss, an electric power tower and the U.S. Destiny science laboratory.
The latest additions: A Canadian robot arm and the $164 million Quest airlock -- components that will enable NASA to erect the rest of a 356-foot (108 meter) central truss and three more power towers so that European and Japanese science labs can be added to the outpost.
"We really couldn't get past where station had grown to without adding this airlock and adding the station arm," Hill said. "Now that we have those, the gate is wide open for us to keep right on building."
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