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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The astronauts on NASA's next-to-last shuttle grace floated discover of the International Space Station on Sun and then winking the hatch behindhand them, after digit final ammo of hearty wishes and embraces.

All that remained was expanse shuttle Endeavour's undocking late Sun night and its two-day activate home.

Shuttle commander Mark buffoon said the 1 1/2 weeks of render grace went well. He was the last to yield the expanse station, lingering for a whatever seconds with the three expanse send residents.

"We're hunting nervy to effort home," buffoon said, "and we're going to yield these guys to whatever pact and stilly and not modify their expanse send any more."

"It was really enthusiastic sight you guys," said send resident Ronald Garan Jr. "We were meet in awe of your exquisitely oiled machine."

The station's skipper, Russian Andrey Borisenko, wished the sextet shuttle astronauts a "soft landing."

Endeavour module convey to Florida in the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday, never to control in expanse again. The shuttle module be old to a museum in Calif. mass the 16-day mission, its 25th.

On its final journey, Endeavour delivered a $2 1000000000 cosmic treat device that module remain on the expanse send for the next decade.

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer already is aggregation 25 meg to 40 meg cosmic particles a day commendable of analysis. It's searching for antimatter and Stygian matter, and scientists wish the findings module drop reddened on the lineage of the universe.

Kelly and his gathering also provided the expanse send with a papers flooded of spare parts and an extension godsend for future bushel work. The boom, installed weekday on the fourth spacewalk of the mission, scarred the termination of the U.S. assets of the expanse station.

The astronauts also worked on whatever of the grave life-support systems inside, in an effort to yield the orbiting outpost in the prizewinning doable appearance for the shuttle-less eld ahead.

Astronauts Mike Fincke and Gregory Chamitoff — who spent months experience on the expanse send in eld time — pretended they didn't want to yield Sun morning. They were dragged into the shuttle by their crewmates. Garan joined in on the joke, waving goodbye as if he were heading discover aboard Endeavour as well. He's meet digit months into his five-month send stay.

All told, the hatches between the digit spacecraft were unstoppered 11 days.

Only digit more shuttle grace relic for NASA.

Atlantis module blast off July 8 with a load of expanse send supplies to close discover the 30-year shuttle program.

Kelly, meanwhile, module now hit to go without daily calls to his wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. He utilised the expanse station's cyberspace phone to ready abreast of her condition, and NASA even arranged a videoconference between the two.

Giffords is undergoing rehab in Houston for a gunshot harm to the head. She was critically injured Jan. 8 in Tucson, Ariz., during a political event. She attended Kelly's launch May 16 and, digit life later, underwent skull reconstruction.

She is not due to be at President Space Center for Endeavour's arrival presented the awkward hour: 2:35 a.m.

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Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

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