Houston – Space shuttle Atlantis pulled away from the international space station Sunday for a return trip to Earth after its six astronauts bade farewell to the residents of the orbiting lab with hugs, handshakes and the traditional ringing of a bell.
“The crew of Atlantis is departing,” station resident Jeff Williams radioed to Mission Control in Houston.
Pilot Chris Ferguson carefully eased Atlantis through a tight corridor away from the station. About 450 feet away, he fired jets to maneuver Atlantis around the space lab so the crew could take photos of their handiwork – a newly expanded station. The space station gleamed in the reflection of the sun.
After the trip around the space station was completed, Williams thanked the shuttle crew for their labors.
“Enjoyed the time together,” Williams radioed. “Look forward to seeing you back in Houston.” Atlantis commander Brent Jett responded, “It was fun working with you guys. Be safe the rest of your mission.” It has been years since NASA and its international partners have gotten a complete view of the orbiting space lab, and the space station is quite different from how Atlantis’ crew found it six days ago.
In three arduous spacewalks with the blue-green Earth as a backdrop, the crew unpacked and installed a 17 1/2-ton addition which contained a pair of solar wings that will ultimately generate a quarter of the space station’s power.
The wings are the first addition to the orbiting space lab since the 2003 Columbia disaster. NASA will affix two more pairs of solar wings on the space station before it is completed in 2010.
The crew woke up to Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone.” Pilot Chris Ferguson, whose family requested the song for him, told Mission Control in Houston: “That’s great music for … what will be a bittersweet day for us today, undocking from the station.” The crew spent the earlier part of their day hauling supplies and equipment from their spacecraft to the station, and getting ready for the undocking and fly-around.
Atlantis returns to Earth Wednesday morning after 11 days in space.
On Monday, a Russian Soyuz rocket carrying cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, U.S. astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria and the world’s first female space tourist is expected to blast off from the middle of the Kazakh steppe.
Anousheh Ansari is an Iranian-American entrepreneur who is paying an estimated $20 million to be only the fourth amateur astronaut to visit the international space station.
Ansari, 40, of Dallas, will be conducting several blood and muscular experiments for the European Space Agency during her eight days on the station.
She will return to Earth on Sept. 28 along with two of the station’s current inhabitants – Williams and Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, who have been on the station since April.
European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter of Germany, who arrived aboard the space shuttle Discovery in July, will remain on the station and help Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria with the flurry of planned construction projects that kicked off with Atlantis’ arrival.
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