Endeavour leaves International Space Station on final journey

The Telegraph (UK): Endeavour leaves International Space Station on final journey
The US space shuttle Endeavour is on its way back to Earth after leaving the International Space Station on its final journey before entering retirement.

Endeavour's last mission is the penultimate flight for the 30-year-old US shuttle program, which will end for good after the Atlantis mission to the orbiting research lab, scheduled to begin July 8.

It uncoupled from the space station when it was 215 miles (350km) over La Paz, Bolivia, NASA said.

It was followed by one-lap of the station to allow the six crew to take photos of the space lab.

Endeavour's 16-day mission began with the shuttle's launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on May 16 and will conclude when the shuttle lands back on Earth early on Wednesday.

During nearly 11 days at the space station, the crew delivered and installed the Alpha-Magnetic Spectrometer-2, which will be left at the space station to scour the universe for clues about dark matter and antimatter.

The shuttle commander is Mark Kelly, whose lawmaker wife Gabrielle Giffords is recovering from a bullet wound to the head. The Arizona congresswoman was shot by a lone gunman during a meeting with local voters in January. Six people were killed.

Miss Giffords was granted leave by her rehabilitation doctors to watch the launch from Kennedy Space Center along with other astronaut family members two weeks ago, but is not expected to return for the middle-of-the-night landing.

After the final shuttle missions, the three spacecraft in the flying fleet and the prototype Enterprise will be sent to different museums across the country.

Discovery, the oldest in the group, was the first shuttle to retire after its final journey to the ISS ended in March. Endeavour is the youngest, and flew its first space mission in 1991. It is now ending its 25th and final mission.

Endeavour is the sixth and last US space shuttle ever built, and was commissioned after the Challenger exploded in 1986.