Shuttle Leaves Station

With the last of the spacewalks completed successfully, the shuttle undocked from the station yesterday and the crew is preparing for the end of their 16-day flight. If all goes well, the shuttle will land at the Kennedy Space Center landing strip on Friday.

There are now just 7 shuttle missions remaining before scheduled retirement. Whether the shuttle missions are extended to cover the "space gap" where the US will have no way to get astronauts into space other than to buy space on a Russian Soyuz, remains to be seen.