Endeavour and six astronauts are less than an hour away from departing the International Station, ending a stay of more than nine days and beginning a two-day journey home to Kennedy Space Center. The crew is scheduled to undock from the station at 7:54 p.m. EST.
In preparation for that event, Endeavour's thrusters are firing to change the orientation of the joined spacecraft so that the orbiter is positioned in front of the outpost, in the direction of travel.
Endeavour pilot Terry Virts will guide Endeavour through a 360-degree flyaround of the station during which crew members will take hundreds of photos of the outpost with its newly installed Tranquility module and cupola.
They'll also take some pictures of the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft, one of two station lifeboats, on which a strip of insulation appears to have peeled away slightly.
After a final separation burn pushes Endeavour away from the station, the crew will begin a late inspection of the spacecraft's wing leading edges, nose cone and thermal tiles to be sure they are in good condition for a planned Sunday night landing.
Take a look at the evening's timeline in this NASA TV schedule. Here's the Flight Day 13 Execute Package of notes and instructions sent to the crew by mission control.
You can watch live coverage of the undocking and flyaround by clicking the NASA TV box on the right side of this page to launch a video player.
Communications connections may not allow video of the undocking to be downlinked in real time, but if not, NASA plans to replay the pictures later this evening.
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