Shuttle Endeavour leaves International Space Station for last time

[alp227]

Source: CNN

(CNN) -- The space shuttle Endeavour undocked from the International Space Station for the last time late Sunday, as the craft nears the end of its final mission.

The scheduled 16-day mission began two weeks ago after multiple delays.

When Endeavour pushed away from the space station just before midnight, it had been docked for 11 days, 17 hour, 41 min, according to NASA's website.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/05/30/shuttle.undocks/index.html

[Ready4Change]

1. One last visit from a US ship, then who knows?

Only one more scheduled Shuttle flight to the ISS now. After that, all man carrying trips to the ISS are in Russian hands. Cargo delivery is less monopolized, as japan has the HTV-2 and Europe has the ATV-2 to supplement Russia's Progress vehicles.

But in the near future, if a US astronaut needs to get into space, we'll have to mooch a seat off Russia. That situation is likely to last at least 5 years.