Space shuttle Endeavour is set to depart from the International Space Station on Monday, ending a long and busy stay that had astronauts thinking fondly about the return home.
The shuttle is scheduled to undock from the station at 2356 GMT to begin the two-day trip back for landing on Wednesday evening at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US.
Endeavour has been at the station 12 days, during which its crew performed five spacewalks, both records for a shuttle mission to the space outpost.
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Astronaut Mike Foreman said the end of this wearying mission was welcome by some.
鈥淲e鈥檝e had a really great time, like everyone said, and a lot of hard work going on, but yeah, I think a few of us are thinking about getting back to planet Earth,鈥� he said in a Sunday night crew press conference from space.
During their stay, the seven shuttle astronauts, working with the three-member station crew, attached the first piece of a Japanese laboratory to the station and assembled a Canadian maintenance robot known as Dextre.
The three-piece lab, called Kibo or 鈥渉ope鈥�, is Japan鈥檚 main contribution to the $100 billion station and will be its largest science facility when completed next year.
The long-armed Dextre, with vaguely human features, will be used for outside maintenance on the station, in some cases replacing spacewalking astronauts.
Endeavour crewmember Richard Linnehan joked that there was no comparison between Dextre and HAL, the famously malfunctioning computer who killed astronauts in the movie 鈥�2001: A Space Odyssey.鈥�
Science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke, who died on Wednesday, was best known for his work on the 1968 film, directed by Stanley Kubrick.
鈥淚鈥檓 a big Arthur C Clarke fan and I have to tell you, Dextre just isn鈥檛 as smart as HAL,鈥� he said in response to a reporter鈥檚 question.
鈥淗e鈥檚 built to be brawn, not brains, and he鈥檚 going to serve a big purpose up here in terms of moving a lot of hardware around.鈥�
NASA, with plans to fly 10 more construction and re-supply flights to the station, is trying to finish the orbital outpost by 2010, when the ageing shuttle fleet is to be retired.
Also on the shuttle schedule is a flight this year to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.
