"Physical separation" had taken place with "rookie" pilot Polansky at the controls, said Kyle Herring, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) spokesman at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

With the addition of the Destiny lab, the space station is now the largest man-made object in space, orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 400 kilometers (244 miles). It weights 112 tonnes and measures 51 meters (168.3 feet) in length and 72 meters (237.6 feet) in width with a height of 27 meters (89.1 feet).

The 1.4 billion dollar laboratory will be the station's main US research facility, and one of six space labs in which astronauts from the 16 countries involved in the space station project will conduct research. The lab will also be used as a command and control center for the station and adds 41 percent to the station's living quarters.

The shuttle Atlantis, docked to the station for nearly a week, is due to return to Earth at 1752 GMT Sunday, landing at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

"This mission represents a huge step up in terms of new capability on the station. In fact it is the largest step up we will have through the assembly sequence," said Andy Algate, the space center's flight director.

Astronauts carried out three space walks to complete the complex task of assembling and installing the 9.2-meter-long (30.2-foot) 15-tonne module with a diameter of 4.3 meters (12.9 feet) manufactured by Boeing Corporation.

"From a station program perspective, this has been an outstanding and great mission. Sometimes I am fearful that it sometimes looks too easy as we do this," said Bill Gerstenmaier, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) deputy station program manager.

Two hours prior to undocking the five shuttle astronauts and the three residents of the space station -- American William Shepherd and Russians Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev -- bade farewell and closed the hatches linking the two craft.

The space station residents, who arrived there on November 2, are due to return to Earth at the end of March.

Shepherd, Gidzenko and Krikalev are installing equipment and carrying out flight-test duties on the space station and will be relieved by three colleagues in March. They will continue work on the station which is expected to be completed in 2006 at cost estimates of between 60 to 96 billion dollars.

A further 39 missions by the shuttle program and Russian rockets are planned before the completion date.

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