Shuttle Docks With New Space Station

Discovery and its crew pulled up and latched onto the international space station late Friday in the first docking between a shuttle and the new orbiting outpost.

The linkup took place about 230 miles above the border of Russia and Kazakstan.

Steered by commander Kent Rominger, the shuttle brought 2 tons of gear to the space station, which was launched last year and consists of only two rooms so far.

When completed, the space station will have about a dozen rooms and will be longer than a football field.

“The history of this moment shouldn’t be lost on us,” said Frank Culbertson, NASA deputy program manager for space station operations. He pronounced the docking “a very significant event, one that we’re going to repeat many, many times in the future.”

Space shuttles have docked nine times with Russia’s Mir station in recent years. But this was the first time since Skylab in the mid-1970s that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration docked with its own space station.

Discovery will be linked to the 77-foot, 70,000-pound space station for nearly six days.

Spacewalking astronauts will attach a crane and other tools to the station’s exterior.

The crew of seven will also unload spare parts, computers, tools, water and clothes for the station’s first permanent inhabitants, who are due to move in next March.

The arrival of the first long-term inhabitants keeps getting postponed because of the Russians’ inability to complete a component that will double as living quarters.