Astronauts Prepare New Space Station for Release From Shuttle

HOUSTON —  After only a day on board, Endeavour’s astronauts turned off the lights and closed the doors of the new international space station Friday for its release this weekend from the shuttle.

Among the items left behind for the first permanent residents, due in little more than a year: wrenches, screwdrivers, drills, a spare computer, a video-conferencing system and clothes. There also was a surprise or two, but the astronauts wouldn’t say what.

“Something that lets them know that we were thinking of them,” commander Robert Cabana hinted.

The five Americans and one Russian entered the seven-story, 35-ton station mounted in the shuttle cargo bay Thursday. Twenty-seven hours later, they began backing out compartment by compartment, turning off the lights and closing the hatches behind them.

Sergei Krikalev, the lone Russian cosmonaut, also cleared a blocked air duct in Zarya, the Russian-built control module.

It may be a while before any of the five Americans see the inside of the station again, if ever. Krikalev, on the other hand, is assigned to the first permanent crew and is scheduled to move in with two other astronauts in January 2000.

As the shuttle crew worked, an unmanned NASA spacecraft blasted off Friday on a 9 1/2-month voyage to Mars, where it will spend two years searching for water.

The Mars Climate Orbiter, which lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, will be joined by the Mars Polar Lander, which is set to launch Jan. 3.

The orbiter’s first job will be to serve as a radio-relay station for the lander, which will burrow into the ground and analyze the soil.

Then, from 2000 to 2002, the Climate Orbiter will track the movement of water vapor and dust in the atmosphere over the entire planet for a full Martian year, or 687 Earth days.