Endeavour Departs Space Station

The space shuttle Endeavour departed from her port-of-call early this afternoon as she and her crew of seven left a newly supplied international crew of six aboard the space station.

Undocking by Endeavour occurred on time at 1:26 pm EDT, as the orbital duo flew high over the Indian Ocean on the 203 orbit of Endeavour's STS-127 mission. "We have physical separation," shuttle skipper Mark "Roman" Polansky stated as bolts opened on the two docking ports.

As the two spacecraft tracked from the central Pacific Ocean, over Mexico and through central Texas and later Arkansas, the orbiter performed a fly around of the station in an orbital ballet 217 miles up.

Endeavour's pilot Doug Hurley moved the ship out to 610 feet from the orbital outpost in space and began a 360 degree fly around. During the station-go-round, Endeavour's astronauts photographed and surveyed the new look of the space station,

Endeavour docked to the station complex on July 17th, and since installed an experiment platform of the Japanese Kibo module, performed five spacewalks, and transferred food, fuel and oxygen to the station while docked.