‘Good bye’ to ISS by Endeavour crew

The Space shuttle crew then moved back into their shuttle to undock their ship. Endeavour’s commander Mark Kelly thanked the space station's crew members for their support and hospitality and called their mission a success.

Mark Kelly said, “We got the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer installed, which is really a remarkable thing for physics and for science. That sensor's already collecting massive amounts of data and we're looking forward to hearing what those discoveries are.”

Endeavour’s crew which comprises of Mark Kelly, Gregory H. Johnson, Michael Fincke, Gregory Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and Roberto Vittori also delivered the spare parts to ISS. The Endeavour crew also did four spacewalks and serviced the Oxygen generator.

Kelly said, “It was a really good 10 days or so that we were docked here. We're looking forward to getting home, we're going to leave these guys to some peace and quiet and not disturb their space station anymore.”

When the Endeavour arrived at the space station after a delay of two weeks, the three members of the space station were concluding their mission on ISS.

On 23 May Commander Dimitry Kondratyev, Paolo Nespoli and Catherine Coleman returned to Earth on Russian Soyuz spacecraft. They left behind Andrey Borisenko, Alexander Samokutyaev and Ronald Garan for further work on the ISS. However, on 9 June three more members are expected to arrive on ISS.

ISS crew thanked Endeavour

ISS crew member Ronald Garan thanked the Endeavour crew for the various works that they did on the International Space Station. He said, “It was really great seeing you guys. We were just in awe of the finely oiled machine that was STS-134. Great EVAs, great robotics, great transfer, AMS getting installed.”

“Special thanks to Taz and Spanky for all your work on the oxygen generation system, on the carbon dioxide removal assembly. We're all looking forward to seeing the mysteries solved from the AMS.”

“So on behalf of Expedition 27, Expedition 28, the entire ISS team, we want to thank you and the entire STS-134 mission team for leaving the space station ready for its continued utilization for at least the next decade. You've really left us in good shape and it was really a big success.”

There is still a plenty of work left for the Endeavour crew. Crew is scheduled to go to bed at 11:26 a.m. and then get up at 7:26 p.m. to undock itself at 11.55 p.m.

Then they will test the new docking sensor technology that was developed for the deep exploration capsule which is a multipurpose crew vehicle.

The Endeavour crew will test the re-entry system of the space shuttle on Monday and then they will be heading back to Kennedy space station at around 2:35 a.m. on Wednesday.