Space shuttle Endeavour was set to depart from the International Space Station on Monday, ending a long and busy stay that had astronauts thinking fondly about the return home. The shuttle was scheduled to undock from the station at 6:56 pm CDT (2356 GMT) to begin the two-day trip back for landing on Wednesday evening at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Endeavour has been at the station 12 days during which its crew performed five spacewalks, both records for a shuttle mission to the space outpost. Astronauts Mike Foreman said the end of this wearying mission was welcome by some. "We've had a really great time, like everyone said, and a lot of hard work going on, but yeah, I think a few of us are thinking about getting back to planet Earth," he said in a Sunday night crew press conference from space.
During their stay, the seven shuttle astronauts, working with the three-member station crew, attached the first piece of a Japanese laboratory to the station and assembled a Canadian maintenance robot known as Dextre. The three-piece lab, called Kibo or "hope," is Japan's main contribution to the $100 billion station and will be its largest science facility when completed next year.