Discovery prepares for final journey home

The International Space Station and Space Shuttle Discovery crews have sealed the hatches between their spacecraft as Discovery gets ready to undock from the space station on Monday for the final time.

Discovery's six astronauts climbed into the shuttle after they joined cosmonauts and astronauts for a farewell ceremony at the station on Sunday afternoon.

"We're going to miss you," the space station's commander, Scott Kelly, told the six shuttle astronauts. "But most of all we're going to miss Discovery.

"Discovery has been a great ship and has really supported the International Space Station more so, I think, than any other space shuttle. We wish her fair winds and following seas."

NASA's plans call for the shuttle to undock on Monday morning and land in Florida on Wednesday, completing a mission that began when Discovery was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on Feb. 24.

The spacecraft is scheduled to land at 11:58 a.m. ET on Wednesday, when it will be retired and sent to a museum, more than 26 years after its first flight.

During the mission, Discovery's crew delivered and installed a new storage compartment at the space station, along with a humanoid robot. Robonaut 2, or R2, will spend the next year or so attached to a pedestal in the U.S. lab on the station.

The R2 consists of a head and a torso with two arms and two hands. NASA says it's able to use the same tools station crew members use. Engineers at the station will monitor how the robot operates in weightlessness.