Space Shuttle Endeavour last night undocked from the International Space Station at the end of a 12-day stay at the outpost and in anticipation of a landing tomorrow at Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

The shuttle bade farewell to the station at 20:25 EDT (00:25 Tuesday GMT) at the end of mission STS-123 which saw astronauts deliver the "Japanese Experiment Logistics Module - Pressurized Section" of the Kibo laboratory and grapple at some length with the final element of the ISS's "Mobile Servicing System" - Canada's "Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator", known to its mates as Dextre.

The next visitor to the station will be the ESA's Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle, which blasted off on 9 March from the Guiana Space Centre and is due to dock on 3 April bearing vital supplies.

Space Shuttle Discovery, meanwhile, has a "launch target" of 25 May for lift-off on mission STS-124 to deliver Kibo's "Pressurized Module" and robotic arm to the ISS. ®

Related stories

• Space robot goes operational at ISS (18 March 2008)
• Astronauts in seven-hour ISS construction session (14 March 2008)
• Space Shuttle Endeavour on its way (11 March 2008)
• ESA's space truck heads for ISS (10 March 2008)