Early this morning, the space shuttle Atlantis separated from the International Space Station for the last time, beginning its two-day journey back to Florida's Kennedy Space Center.
After eight days, 15 hours, and 21 minutes, the shuttle undocked from the ISS at 2:28am Eastern time while it was 243 miles above the Pacific, east of Christchurch, New Zealand. At 4:18am, Atlantis fired its jets and formally separated from the space station.
Before starting their journey home, Mission Specialists Rex Walheim and Sandy Magnus snapped photos of the ISS from 600 feet above the station, capturing angles the shuttle never has seen before during a fly-around, NASA said.
The crew then started an inspection the shuttle's thermal protection system shortly after 6am. Crew members used the 50-foot-long Orbiter Boom Sensor System to conduct a 3D scan of areas of the wing leading edges and nose cap, which experience the highest heating during entry. Mission control officials will review that heat shield data in the coming days to make sure everything is operational.
In all, NASA has completed 37 missions devoted to assembling and maintaining the space station for a total of 276 days, 11 hours and 23 minutes, or almost 40 weeks.
Yesterday, the Atlantis crew successfully packed up the vehicle's cargo bay, depositing the 21-foot long Raffaello storage bin back on Atlantis. It arrived at the ISS stuffed with 9,403 pounds of spare parts, equipment, and other supplies—including 2,677 pounds of food that will sustain the ISS crew in the coming year. It departs with 5,700 pounds of supplies, including faulty parts, and a good amount of trash that had accumulated on the ISS.
Atlantis is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center at 5:56am Eastern time on Thursday. The night before, New York City's Empire State Building will be lit up in red, white, and blue in honor of NASA's space shuttle program.
For more on NASA's shuttle program, see the slideshow above.