Shuttle departs station, risky return awaits

Discovery departed from the International Space Station yesterday and glided off on its own in the first step toward the shuttle's risky return to Earth.

With pilot Jim Kelly at the controls, the spacecraft unlatched from the docking port, then eased away from the station that it joined in space on July 28.

Kelly looped Discovery once around the station while his crewmates snapped photographs of the station's exterior for inspection later by NASA engineers.

Then he fired the shuttle jets to send Discovery on its way. It was separating from the station at 14 km per orbit, or about every 90 minutes.

Discovery is making the first shuttle flight since Columbia broke apart while returning to Earth on February 1, 2003. It is scheduled to land in Florida tomorrow.

Officials at the US space agency were to meet yesterday to look at weather forecasts. If conditions are not optimal, Discovery's return could be delayed.

Night-shift workers at Johnson Space Center in Houston went outside to watch the shuttle and space station, still only about 16 km apart, sail overhead early yesterday.

They looked like two stars, the larger space station brighter than the shuttle, cruising in tandem at 28,000 kph, 352 km above the Earth.

Later yesterday, the Discovery crew was to check out the shuttle's steering rockets and start stowing gear in preparation for their return.

While at the station, Discovery astronauts Soichi Noguchi and Steve Robinson conducted three spacewalks, which were mostly devoted to maintenance work on the station and installing a storage platform on its exterior.

The third walk included an unprecedented repair by Robinson on the shuttle's belly as he plucked out two cloth strips protruding from the heat shield.

Discovery transferred tonnes of cargo to and from the space station, stocking it with food, water and other supplies and carting off trash and unneeded equipment that had piled up since the last shuttle visit in 2002.

Shuttles are supposed to be primary suppliers for the station, but Russian spacecraft have ferried in goods since the Columbia disaster.

Space station astronauts Sergei Krikalev and John Phillips warmly thanked the Discovery crew on Friday for their visit and sent them off with handshakes and hugs.

NASA officials consider the shuttle safe to return home and said it would not fly a shuttle again until the foam problem is fixed. NASA officials said on Friday they hoped they could launch again as early as September 22.