Moving-in day at international space station

It was moving-in day today for the crew of Discovery, which planned to unload thousands of kilos of supplies and cargo from the US space shuttle to the international space station.

The astronauts were to move a huge container, nicknamed Leonardo, onto the space station by robotic arm. Among the goodies awaiting the space station crew were a new stationary bicycle for exercise, an oxygen generator that will eventually allow the space station to support six inhabitants, a machine that cools the station’s cabin air and a lab freezer for scientific samples.

A third crew member awoke on the international space station for the first time in three years.

European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter joined the space station’s other two crew members yesterday after the shuttle docked with he orbiting complex.

As a member of the space station crew, Reiter got to sleep in half-an-hour later than his six former shuttle crew mates, who awoke to a recording of The Beatles’ Good Day Sunshine,” a choice of astronaut Lisa Nowak’s family.

Nowak an astronaut Stephanie Wilson planned to use the shuttle’s robotic arm and an extended boom to take close-up pictures of areas on the orbiter’s underside that engineers need more information about to reassure themselves that there’s no damage like the kind that doomed Columbia’s flight in 2003.

There are only four spots that need attention and none of them was a big deal, said deputy shuttle programme manager John Shannon. The arm will look at the shuttle’s left side for the two tile fillers, the nosecap area that eluded earlier photography and the fabric behind the nose.

The robotic arm and boom were used two days ago to examine the shuttle’s nosecap and wings for damage. Before docking yesterday, Discovery commander Steve Lindsey manoeuvred the shuttle into a back flip so that the space station’s crew could photograph the shuttle’s belly and transmit to the images to engineers in Houston.

Columbia’s seven astronauts were killed during re-entry when fiery gases entered a breach in the shuttle’s wing. The breach was caused by foam hitting its external tank.