Shuttle crew prepares for space station docking

The crew of the US space shuttle Discovery woke up today on course to dock with the international space station after a two-day journey from Earth.

A recording of Elton John’s Daniel woke the crew up, a choice of the wife and two sons of European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter, who was set to become a member of the space station’s crew after the shuttle docked.

Reiter, who has a son named Daniel, will spend six months living on the space station, bringing the size of the crew to three people for the first time in three years.

The crew size was reduced in the years after 2003’s Columbia accident when Nasa’s shuttle fleet was grounded. Russian vehicles weren’t large enough to keep the space station supplied for more than two people.

The docking with the space station, orbiting about 220 miles above Earth, was to come a day after in-flight inspections of Discovery by its crew, using cameras attached to a 50-foot boom, revealed no major damage from the launch.

There would be one more opportunity to inspect the space vehicle before docking.