Image: Endeavour's rendezvous pitch maneuver

At 5:15 a.m. EDT today, Endeavour began the nine-minute Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver, or 'backflip,' on its last visit to the Inernational Space Station.

With Commander Mark Kelly at the controls, Endeavour rotated 360 degrees backward to enable space station astronauts Dmitry Kondratyev, Paolo Nespoli and Cady Coleman to take high resolution pictures of the shuttle’s heat shield.

Kelly then flew the shuttle through a quarter circle to a position about 400 feet directly in front of the station. Docking occurred about an hour later at 6:14 a.m.