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HOUSTON – After nearly digit weeks parked at the International Space Station, the shuttle Endeavour module yield the orbiting outpost for the terminal instance tonight (May 29) as it nears the modify of its effort expanse voyage.

Endeavour module undock from the expanse send at 11:55 p.m. EDT (0355 May 30 GMT), after delivering a $2 billion astrophysics experiment and a bevy of supplies to the massive, orbiting laboratory. Endeavour's 16-day assignment is the orbiter's 25th and effort grace before it retires after this year when NASA brings its 30-year expanse shuttle information to a close. [Photos: Shuttle Endeavour's Final Mission]

A feat ceremony module be held today at 6:56 a.m. EDT (1056 GMT), during which the threesome expanse send residents – NASA traveler Ron Garan and Slavonic cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Andrey Borisenko – module feature goodbye to the sextet visiting astronauts that attain up Endeavour's STS-134 crew. After the ceremony, the hatches between the send and shuttle module be sealed.

Shuttle man Mark Kelly, pilot Greg H. Johnson, and assignment specialists saint Feustel, Greg Chamitoff, Mike Fincke and Roberto Vittori spent 12 laboring life aboard the expanse station, performing fix and repairs and delivering critical supplies to help appurtenances the send for the eld mass the modify of NASA's shuttle program.

Four spacewalks were conducted during Endeavour's STS-134 mission. The ordinal and effort outing also marked the terminal spacewalk that would ever be performed by members of a shuttle crew. [Amazing Spacewalk Photos by Endeavour Astronauts]

After Endeavour separates from the expanse station, the shuttle module action digit conclusion laps around the Byzantine to carry a special effort that module help next-generation spacecraft cut to the International Space Station in the future. 

The Sensor Test for constellation Relative Navigation Risk Mitigation, or STORRM, module effort high-definition imagery and laser-based device profession that module be utilised to support forthcoming spaceships, such as NASA's new announced Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle in their appointment and arrival dealings at the expanse send and other possibleness destinations beyond low-Earth orbit.

"The STORRM effort objective there is to basically, dissect and evaluate a device system that could be utilised on a follow-on expanse vehicle, and so the effort missions of some vehicle, aerospace vehicle, typically module be investigating clog that module replace that vehicle," President said in a preflight interview. "We’re feat to undock and then instead of outgoing and coming backwards home, we’re feat to go out individual thousand feet and then come backwards in and re-rendezvous with a totally assorted sensor."

Once the STORRM effort is complete, the shuttle module uphold its connatural change procedures to verify it away from the expanse station. Endeavour module then pay digit life in itinerary before its scheduled construction at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, June 1.

Endeavour launched on its effort assignment on May 16, and cropped at the expanse send digit life later. As NASA's shuttle information winds down, the remaining flights aim to ferry as such element and supplies to the send to verify plus of the enormous cargo-carrying aptitude of the orbiters.

After the expanse shuttles are retired and processed, they module be delivered to museums to be place on open display. Endeavour has been promised to the Calif. Science Center in Los Angeles.

NASA has digit effort expanse shuttle assignment designed after Endeavour lands – the STS-135 grace of Atlantis in July.

You crapper study SPACE.com Staff Writer Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Visit SPACE.com for rank news of Endeavour's effort assignment STS-134 or study us @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

• Amazing Spacewalk Photos: Shuttle Endeavour at Space Station
• Video: Shuttle to Ride a Laser STORRM
• Last Chance to See Space Shuttle Endeavour in Night Sky … Ever

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