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Tue, Feb 19 07:55 AM
Space shuttle Atlantis departed on Monday from the newly expanded International Space Station and began its return trip to Earth ahead of a U.S. military plan to shoot down a dead spy satellite.
Atlantis, which delivered a European laboratory during its nine-day stay at the station, was scheduled to land on Wednesday at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida or, if the weather is bad, at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
The shuttle could stay in space another couple of days if necessary, but NASA wants to clear the skies for the satellite shoot-down.
"We will land, if not at the Cape, out at Edwards on Wednesday," mission management chairman Leroy Cain said at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The spy satellite failed shortly after launch in 2006 and is said to be loaded with toxic rocket fuel.
It is expected to fall to Earth in early March, but the military hopes to destroy it with a ship-based missile while it is about 240 km high and at a point where the debris would fall into the ocean.
Military officials said the window for firing extends only into early next week, but they would wait for the shuttle to land before taking a shot.
NASA said the satellite shot should not pose a threat to the station, which orbits about 200 miles (320 km) above the Earth.
The plan has drawn criticism from Russia and China and accusations that the planned shootdown is really a weapons test -- a charge the United States denies.
COLUMBUS DELIVERED
Atlantis, which launched on Feb. 7 from Florida, ferried the $1.9 billion Columbus lab to the station in a delivery delayed for years by events such as the 2003 destruction of the space shuttle Columbia.
The lab is Europe's first permanent research facility in space and its primary contribution to the $100 billion station.
Its installation was postponed for a day when ailing German astronaut Hans Schlegel had to be replaced for a spacewalk to aid attachment to the station.
His illness was never disclosed, but he recovered well enough to take part in another spacewalk two days later.
On Monday, pilot Alan Poindexter pulsed Atlantis' steering jets to slip the ship out of its berth on the station.
"We just want to thank you for being a great host," radioed Atlantis commander Stephen Frick to station commander Peggy Whitson.
"It's a great new room you added on," Whitson told Frick. "Get home safe and thanks."
As Atlantis departed, sister ship Endeavour was rolled out to the launch pad at Kennedy in preparation for the next shuttle flight on March 11.
Endeavour will carry the first part of Japan's research complex, called Kibo, to the station.
NASA hopes to fly six shuttle missions this year, including a servicing call to the Hubble Space Telescope. The agency is under a presidential directive to complete construction of the station, now about 60 percent finished, and retire the shuttles by Sept. 30, 2010.
(Additional reporting by Irene Klotz in Cape Canaveral)
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