Note: updated at 9:35 a.m. with crew comments, images. Humans have released the Hubble Space Telescope from their grasp for the last time.
On schedule at 8:57 a.m., space shuttle Atlantis mission specialist Megan McArthur commanded the orbiter's robotic arm to let go of the 19-year-old observatory.
The two spacecraft were orbiting 350 miles above the Atlantic Ocean, approaching the coast of Africa. "Hubble has been released," commander Scott Altman radioed to Houston minutes later. "Now Hubble can continue on its own, exploring the cosmos and bringing them to us, as we head for home in a few days."
"Congratulations on a great series of spacewalks," replied spacecraft communicator Dan Burbank from Houston. "It's wonderful to see Hubble, the most famous science instrument of all time, newly upgraded and ready for action thanks to you." The seven-member Atlantis crew was the fifth and last shuttle crew to repair and upgrade Hubble since it launched in April 1990.
Sixteen astronauts logged more than 166 hours of spacewalks during the five servicing missions.
The STS-125 crew on Monday completed the last of five highly successful spacewalks on five consecutive days, leaving Hubble with two new state-of-the-art science instruments and two more brought back to life from power failures. "Thanks to all of your extraordinary efforts, Hubble is now better than new!" mission managers wrote in notes to the crew today.
Pilot Gregory Johnson guided Atlantis through the a very slight first separation burn to ease the shuttle away from Hubble.
Then at 9:28 a.m., he accelerated the separation with a second burn, pushing Atlantis at rate of about six feet per second.
Another burn to drop Atlantis to a lower altitude - one where there is less space debris - is scheduled around 11 a.m.
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