New Crew for Space Station Brings a Girder

Space shuttle Endeavour arrived at the international space station on Monday, delivering a new three-man crew and another girder for the orbiting outpost.

The one American and two Russians who have been living on the space station since spring were thrilled to see Endeavour, their ride home.

“You guys look pretty good out there,” space station astronaut Peggy Whitson radioed as Endeavour made its final approach. The shuttle closed the gap more slowly than usual and docked a half-hour late, prompting Whitson to joke: “It looks like you guys fly that like you stole it.”

The two spacecraft came together 250 miles over the South Pacific, ending a round-and-round-the-world chase that began with Endeavour’s weekend launch. It marked the close of a six-month stint aboard the space station for Whitson and cosmonauts Valery Korzun and Sergei Treschev.

When they moved into the space station on June 7, the three were supposed to check out in October after 4 1/2 months. But shuttle problems extended their stay.

Astronaut Kenneth Bowersox, a 46-year-old Navy captain, succeeds Korzun as the space station commander. Bowersox will remain on board until March, along with American Donald Pettit and Russian Nikolai Budarin. Mission Control welcomed them to their new home.

The crews exchanged enthusiastic bear hugs once the hatches swung open. Whitson teased Pettit about his new buzz cut.

“Hey, you got a haircut, dude,” she said, laughing. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Pettit entered the space station with straws and bags of drinks for Whitson and her Russian colleagues. “Coffee,” he announced.

Endeavour will remain docked for a full week so its crew can install the latest link in the space station’s backbone. The $390-million girder will be removed from the shuttle payload bay today, and a pair of shuttle astronauts will perform three spacewalks to hook it up.

A nearly identical girder was attached by another shuttle crew last month. By the time the aluminum framework is completed in another year, it will stretch longer than a football field and support a network of solar wings and radiators.

Pettit, a newcomer to space and the station’s designated science officer, was not supposed to be on this mission. He was originally an understudy but was upgraded in July after NASA pulled astronaut Donald Thomas off the flight.

Doctors were worried about Thomas’ exposure to cosmic radiation during a four-month space voyage.

For Thomas, it was a sore subject, so much so that he did not contact the other astronauts before their launch, Bowersox said.

“Going up for a long-duration flight was Don Thomas’ dream, and when he wasn’t able to do it, it hurt him pretty bad,” Bowersox said Sunday. “So as the distance and the time heals that wound, then I think it will be a little bit easier for him to discuss how much fun we’re having on orbit.”