U.S., Russian Spacecraft Go Separate Ways : Docking: Shuttle Atlantis ends historic 5-day linkup with space station. It leaves with three crewmen who have been in orbit since mid-March.

Astronauts and cosmonauts watched their ships part and fade into the blackness of space Tuesday in an orbital pirouette that ended five days of flying as a single craft.

“We’re just shaking our heads at how quickly this has all gone by,” said Charles Precourt, pilot of the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis. “It’s as if it were a dream, that we didn’t really live it, it happened so fast. . . . But what a great time, what a great effort.”

For half an hour, three craft hovered a few hundred feet from one another while hurtling around Earth at 5 miles a second: The Russian Soyuz capsule with two cosmonauts, Atlantis with eight passengers, and the temporarily unmanned Russian space station Mir.

Both crews recorded the historic moment on video and film, but the sun’s glare spoiled many of the pictures.

“It’s been an inspiring visit with our neighbors in space. We look forward to returning,” said NASA’s Mission Control.

“We agree with that. . . . We agree 100%,” Atlantis’ commander, Robert L. (Hoot) Gibson, replied as he backed the shuttle away from the station. “In one of the simulations, the words ‘cosmic ballet’ came to mind, and I guess that’s where we are now.”

Atlantis is due back at Mir in late October with another crew. Altogether, six more dockings are planned over the next two years as a prelude to the construction of an international space station later this decade. And astronauts and cosmonauts are already talking of a shared trip to Mars.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Tommy Holloway, manager of the docking program, couldn’t resist comparing this mission to the harrowing Apollo 13 flight, which took place 25 years ago and is currently being glamorized by Hollywood.

“In the ‘Apollo 13’ movie, the character of [flight director] Gene Kranz said just prior to the entry that this will be NASA’s finest hour,” Holloway said. “Gene, I’m here to report to you that . . . this is NASA’s finest hour, and I expect it will continue for many years to come.”

Cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev and Nikolai Budarin began the undocking sequence by shoving off from Mir in the small Soyuz capsule and backing away 300 feet. They took the only videotape and photographs of the world’s largest spacecraft in its entirety--the 100-ton Atlantis joined to the 123-ton Mir, each more than 120 feet long.

Video from Mir showed a grainy picture, with the joined shuttle and station off-center.

On the shuttle, the push of a button released the hooks binding the two craft together. Springs gently eased Atlantis away from Mir and the craft slowly separated.

At about that time, Mir began drifting off-course, possibly because of an on-board computer failure. Russian flight controllers ordered Solovyev and Budarin to hustle back to Mir; their Soyuz redocked safely.

For nearly 1 1/2 hours, Atlantis flew around Mir for picture-taking, then fired its thrusters 245 miles above South America to move into its own track.

“Bye-bye,” Solovyev said softly.

Atlantis launched with seven occupants and is scheduled to land Friday at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center with eight. It is returning NASA astronaut Norman E. Thagard and cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Gennady Strekalov, who had all been living on Mir since mid-March.

Thagard and the two returning cosmonauts were replaced by Solovyev and Budarin, who flew up on Atlantis and won’t come back until early September.

The shuttle is also bringing back hundreds of pounds of saliva, urine and blood collected by the returning crewmen during their mission as well as Russian equipment.

By the time Atlantis lands, the three will have spent 115 days in orbit, giving Thagard a U.S. record.

Sky viewers in Los Angeles will be able to see Mir tonight at 8:48. The space station will appear at 21 degrees above the west-southwest. It will be visible as a star moving right to left across the sky for about two minutes.