March 13, 2008, 12:45
Space shuttle Endeavour linked up with the International Space Station more than 320km above Earth yesterday on a mission to deliver a Japanese laboratory. The docking, which took place high above Singapore, capped a two-day voyage that began with Endeavour's liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida early on Tuesday.
"Endeavour arriving," space station commander Peggy Whitson called out as the shuttle slipped onto a station berthing port. Following naval tradition for a ship's arrival, a bell was rung on the station. "Peggy, that's the sweetest bell I ever heard," said shuttle commander Dominic Gorie.
During what is scheduled to be a 12-day station stay, the Endeavour crew will perform five spacewalks to install the first part of Japan's Kibo laboratory and a new Canadian-built robotic system called Dextre that will do detailed work on the station exterior. Kibo, which means "hope" in English, is Japan's primary contribution to the $100 billion station, a project of 15 countries.
About the size of a double-decker bus, it will be the station's largest lab when its assembly is completed early next year. The astronauts also plan to test a heat shield repair technique to prepare for a shuttle mission later this year to the Hubble Space Telescope. Assuring that the repair works are critical because the Hubble shuttle will be too far from the space station to take refuge should it be damaged.
Colombia accident
As the shuttle approached the station yesterday, Gorie back-flipped Endeavour so station astronauts could photograph its belly tiles, part of a series of safety inspections imposed after the 2003 Columbia accident. Heat shield damage led to the breakup of Columbia as it flew through the atmosphere for landing, killing its seven-member crew. NASA now checks for debris impacts that might compromise the shuttle's heat shield while the ship is in orbit.
NASA is pressing to complete construction of the space station by 2010, when it must retire the space shuttle fleet due to design safety issues raised by the Columbia accident investigators. Once the shuttles are grounded, the United States plans to transport crews to the station on Russian Soyuz capsules, although trade sanctions imposed over weapons proliferation concerns currently ban NASA from buying Russian space services and hardware after 2011. - Reuters
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