TS-113 MCC Status Report #18 
Monday, December 2, 2002 – 8:30 a.m. CST 
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas 

Today, the crews of Endeavour and the International Space Station will
bid each other a final farewell and shortly after will close hatches
between the two spacecraft in preparation for Endeavour's departure this
afternoon. 

Endeavour will leave behind the Expedition Six Crew - Commander Ken
Bowersox, NASA ISS Science Officer Don Pettit and Flight Engineer Nikolai
Budarin - who are scheduled to live and work aboard the station for the
next four months. 

Endeavour Commander Jim Wetherbee, Pilot Paul Lockhart, Mission
Specialists Michael Lopez-Alegria and John Herrington, and Expedition
Five Commander Valery Korzun, NASA ISS Science Officer Peggy Whitson and
Flight Engineer Sergei Treschev are scheduled to begin those farewells at
11:15 a.m. 

Endeavour is scheduled to undock from the space station at 2:05 p.m.,
after bringing the station a new resident crew, installing the Port One
truss and transferring more than 2,500 pounds of supplies, equipment and
experiments. As Endeavour gently undocks and backs slowly away from the
station, the two vehicles should be flying high over Western Australia. 

Shortly after undocking, the Endeavour crew will release two miniature
satellites as part of an experiment referred to as MEPSI. Funded by the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the two small
satellites, which are tethered together, will be released from
Endeavour's payload bay to fly free for three days as a technology
demonstration of the launcher assembly and use of micro-and
nano-technolgoies in space systems. 

As the Expedition Six crew settles into its first day alone aboard the
station, Endeavour's crew will begin stowing away equipment and hardware
in anticipation of Wednesday's scheduled landing at the Kennedy Space
Center. Weather permitting, Endeavour is scheduled to return to Earth on
Wednesday at 2:48 p.m. central. The next STS-113 mission status report
will be issued Monday evening or earlier if events warrant