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The Space Shuttle Discovery docked with the International Space Station - Source: Reuters -
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Space shuttle Discovery arrived at the International Space
Station for one of NASA's last servicing and re-supply runs before
the fleet is retired later this year.
Discovery commander Alan Poindexter and his six crewmates,
including Japan's rookie astronaut Naoko Yamazaki, reached the
orbital space base at 3:44 am local time as the ships sailed 346 km
above the Caribbean Sea.
The astronauts used backup systems, including star trackers and
hand-held lasers, to navigate to the station due to the loss of the
shuttle's primary Ku-band communications system, which took out the
ship's radars, television and main data relay.
One of the crew's first tasks will be to borrow the space station's
communications lines to radio videotapes of their heat shield
inspection to Mission Control centre in Houston for analysis.
The inspection is part of the upgraded safety procedures
implemented after the 2003 Columbia disaster, which killed seven
astronauts.
The shuttle broke apart during its return to Earth due to an
undetected hole in its heat shield.
Before parking at the station, Poindexter slowly back-flipped the
shuttle so astronauts aboard the station could photograph
Discovery's belly, which was not part of Tuesday's inspection.
The images will be sent to ground control teams for analysis as
well.
The loss of the shuttle's main communications system is not
expected to adversely impact Discovery's mission, though flight
directors have had to revamp some procedures, said LeRoy Cain, head
of NASA's mission management team.
The shuttle is carrying an Italian-built cargo pod filled with
7,700 kgs of equipment and supplies for the station.
NASA plans three more missions to the outpost before it retires
Discovery and sister ships Atlantis and Endeavour due to cost and
safety issues.
The Obama administration wants to cancel a planned follow-on
program to send astronauts back to the moon, saying the $153
billion project, known as Constellation, was too expensive and
lacked cache.
The president plans to hold a space summit at or near the Kennedy
Space Center on April 15 to build support for a revamped space
exploration initiative that initially will be focused on technology
developments needed to send people to Mars.
The new plan also extends the life of the space station, a $US100
billion project of 16 nations that has been under construction
since 1998, to at least 2020.
The six-member station crew is led by Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov,
and includes Japan's Soichi Noguchi.
The shuttle, which is scheduled to spend nine days at the station,
is due back at the Kennedy Space Center on April 18.
