The U.S. space shuttle Discovery backed away from the International Space Station on Wednesday, leaving behind a Japanese research laboratory, a new crew member and high hopes for the outpost's completion by 2010, Reuters reported. Pilot Ken Ham pulsed Discovery's steering jets to slip away from the station's Harmony docking port at 7:42 a.m. EDT/1142 GMT. The shuttle arrived on June 2 to deliver Japan's primary contribution to the $100 billion complex, the 37-foot-long (11-metre-long) Kibo laboratory. "We hope we left them a better, more capable station than when we arrived," Discovery commander Mark Kelly radioed to flight controllers as the shuttle prepared for undocking. Discovery is due to land at at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday after completing the third of five shuttle missions NASA has planned for this year.
