By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, U.S. (Reuters) – The shuttle Discovery left the International Space Station Wednesday, ending an eight-day visit which served to bring its first Japanese astronaut and provide enough power to orbital position as to receive three more residents.

The shuttle commander, Lee Archambault, and pilot Tony Antonelli steering thrusters ignited at 15.53 local time (1953 GMT), to separate the spacecraft from 100 tons to the port coupling.

Before leaving the orbital position, Antonelli made Discovery to fly around the complex, which was provided during the visit of the shuttle's last group of solar panels, which finally gave the appearance that the station had the pictures that NASA has circulated for decades.

You have made the station as it is much better than it was before, said station commander Mike Fincke, the crew of Discovery when they met to say goodbye.

landing of Discovery is scheduled for Saturday at the Kennedy Space Center, located in Florida.

It was really great having them up here, said Fincke, who will return to Earth on April 7 along with the flight engineer Yury Lonchakov, to complete a stay of six months.

It is anticipated that their replacements, the commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Michael Barratt — along with space tourist Charles Simonyi, a former Microsoft executive to go into space a second time-off on Thursday aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The third crewmember to the station, Japanese Koichi Wakata, is already on board. Wakata andalusia post came aboard the orbital shuttle Discovery to replace NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus.

After four months up here and great passing, I want to be out, Magnus said to reporters during a flight.

STATION CREW READY FOR MORE

The main mission of Discovery on this trip, the first five scheduled for this year was to deliver the final segment of the column of the space station: a beam of 31,000 pounds (14,060 kilograms) with a value of $ 300 million which includes the latest set of solar panels.

The increase of power supply enough power to double the number of medical experiments, fluid physicists and materials scientists can be made in three laboratories of the station.

To carry out additional work, the United States and its 15 partners in the three space station astronauts plan to add more to the current crew of three residents of the space station.

If the programming Another Soyuz rocket off in May with the first additional crew. One of NASA's next mission in June intends to install a porch built by the Japanese Kibo module that will allow experiments to be directly exposed to space environment.

The crew of Discovery also carried a new part to repair the system for recycling water from the station, which purifies the urine so it can be used for drinking or to be split into hydrogen and oxygen to breathe.

The shuttle will bring back samples from the water system of the station to be tested on Earth. NASA will not approve the use of water by the crew until the result holds, although the directors said they have enough water stored aboard the orbital position to expand the crew.

(Published in Spanish by Ricardo Figueroa)