Discovery departed from her orbiting companion, the International Space Station, at 0324 EDT (0724 GMT) on Saturday, wrapping up nine busy days of docked time.
鈥淗ouston, Discovery. We have physical separation,鈥� commander Eileen Collins told ground control, indicating that undocking had been successful.
Before she and her crew of six left the station, Collins thanked the ISS crew for being such good hosts. ISS flight engineer John Phillips, replied: 鈥淭hank you so much for being wonderful guests. It鈥檚 really been a pleasure. And no, we鈥檙e not glad to see you go. We鈥檇 love to see you stay longer.鈥�
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As the shuttle crew floated back to the orbiter, Phillips rang a bell in the station鈥檚 laboratory to mark the astronauts鈥� departure.
For most of the mission, all eyes and cameras were focused on Discovery. A record number of inspections were performed on the orbiter鈥檚 heat shield to ensure that it was safe to land. A breach in Columbia鈥檚 heat shield led to its destruction in 2003.
However, after undocking, the focus shifted to the station as Discovery鈥檚 pilot Jim Kelly backed up the orbiter 120 metres before making a full lap of the station to get an all-around view of the outpost. Ground controllers were particularly anxious to see whether undocking had jostled any debris loose from an experiment on the outside of the station. After the circle, Discovery鈥檚 thrusters will fire to increase the distance between the two vehicles.
Catch up on every twist and turn of the mission in our , including images, video, an interactive timeline and our exclusive 鈥淚nstant expert鈥� feature.
While they were aboard the station, Discovery and her crew hauled aboard new gear, performed three spacewalks, fixed two faulty gyroscopes, took away old supplies and tested new ways of repairing a damaged heat shield in space. Astronaut Steve Robinson also made the first ever spacewalk underneath the orbiter to pluck out some gap fillers that were sticking up from between the heat shield tiles.
Discovery is scheduled to land at 0446 EDT (0846 GMT) on Monday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Early weather forecasts have called for a chance of showers in the area that morning. Discovery could stay in space for two extra days in the hope that the weather would get better, or it could touch down at its alternative landing strips in Edwards Air Force Base, California or White Sands, New Mexico.
On Friday, NASA Administrator Mike Griffin announced that the next space shuttle, Atlantis, would launch no earlier than 22 September, pushed back from 9 September. This leaves Atlantis only a few days to launch in the September window.
The launch will only go ahead then if NASA figures out what caused pieces of foam to come off Discovery鈥檚 external tank during launch 鈥� the problem that downed Columbia. A huge effort was made to solve the problem for Discovery鈥檚 launch, but only reduced the problem rather than eliminated it.
