Shuttle docks with space station

Space shuttle Atlantis has docked with the international space station, delivering a new $164m passageway for spacewalkers.

The two craft linked up high above South America, ending a chase of nearly two days.

The space station residents, in orbit since March, were eager to greet their latest guests and kept tabs on the shuttle's slow, deliberate approach.

"Better put the hot dogs on the burner for them," Mission Control told space station astronaut Jim Voss as Atlantis pulled within six miles.

"Yeah, we're sweeping off the porch right now," Voss replied.

When the shuttle got within 500ft, Voss urged the shuttle crew to smile for the space station cameras.

"We're all smiling down here," replied shuttle commander Steven Lindsey. He guided Atlantis in for the 230-mile-high docking a little late, taking extra time to line up the spacecraft as perfectly as possible.

The eight space travellers - five on Atlantis and three on space station Alpha - will work together to install the new air lock, beginning this weekend.

The pressurised chamber will be used by astronauts and cosmonauts as a spacewalk dressing room and a portal into the vacuum of space.

The air lock is more than 13,000 lbs of aluminium shaped like a squat water tower. Once it is hooked to the space station, four tanks of high-pressure gas, each weighing 1,200 lbs, will be attached.