CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Five Americans, two Russians and a Canadian sealed hatches between Endeavour and the International Space Station Saturday as the shuttle astronauts prepared for a high-flying photo-op during their departure from the outpost.
Look for Endeavour and its crew -- which includes four U.S. astronauts and a Canadian mission specialist -- to pull out of the station at 2:13 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (19:13 GMT) -- an exodus that will be broadcast live on SPACE.com.
Pilot Mike Bloomfield then will guide the shuttle on a 45-minute "flyaround" of the station as camera-wielding crewmates beam back vivid images of the 13-story outpost and its massive new solar wings.
"One of the things you notice about manmade objects in space is that they're either black, white or silver, or gray -- those four kind of drab colors," Bloomfield told SPACE.com CEO Lou Dobbs in a space-to-ground interview earlier this week.That's not the case, however, with the huge solar wings that now dwarf the station, stretching a staggering 240 feet (73 meters) from tip to tip.
The giant arrays were unfurled and activated by Endeavour's astronauts after the shuttle crew mounted a $600 million electric power tower at the station.
"You have this brilliant gold array that is silhouetted against the blackness of space," Bloomfield told Dobbs.
What's more, "looking through the station down at the Earth, we'll now have these very brilliant gold-orangish colored arrays against the blueness of the Earth," he said. "And it should make for a fantastic picture."
The Endeavour astronauts and the station crew -- which includes U.S. astronaut Bill Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts -- Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev - closed the final hatch between the shuttle and its outpost docking port about 10:51 a.m. EST (15:51 GMT).
In a short farewell ceremony at the threshold of the two craft, Shepherd thanked the shuttle crew and an international team of ground engineers for delivering the new power plant -- and abundant electricity -- to the outpost.
"Job well done," Shepherd said as the shuttle astronauts and the station's first full-time tenants hugged and shook hands.
In keeping with U.S. Navy tradition, shuttle skipper Brent Jett then requested permission to depart the station, known by the radio call sign "Alpha."
"Permission granted," said Shepherd.
Also an aficionado of nautical and Navy lore, Shepherd then rang a bell in the station's Unity module to mark the exit of the shuttle crew.
"Endeavour departing," he said as the bell tolled aboard Alpha.
"Great sound effects, 'Shep,'" NASA astronaut Joan Higginbotham told the station commander from NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston. "Glad you got your bell."
Hatches between the craft opened up early Friday, and the joined crews spent the day hauling supplies and equipment into the station -- and trash out of it.
Empty food and water containers, stowage bags, broken computer equipment and gear no longer needed aboard the station was moved over to the shuttle for a return trip to Earth.
That two-day trip will begin in earnest at 3:17 p.m. EST (20:17 GMT) as Bloomfield fires shuttle jet thrusters in a final separation burn, propelling Endeavour out of the station's vicinity.
The Endeavour quintet is scheduled to land here at Kennedy Space Center at 6:19 p.m. EST (23:19) GMT Monday.
Shepherd and company, meanwhile, will remain aboard the station for another three months. A replacement crew comprising Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev and two U.S. astronauts -- Jim Voss and Susan Helms -- is due at the outpost in mid-February.
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