The shuttle is scheduled to dock with the orbiting laboratory at 6:46 am (1046 GMT) after Commander Brent Jett maneuvers Atlantis into a tricky backflip to allow the ISS crew to take pictures of the orbiter's underbelly.

NASA says the 11-day mission to boost power on the ISS entails the most complex work ever undertaken at the nearly eight-year-old, half-finished orbiting laboratory.

It comes after a nearly four-year hiatus due to the 2003 Columbia disaster.

NASA's positive assessment of Atlantis' safety came one day after the shuttle launched flawlessly with six astronauts aboard from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on the third shuttle mission since the 2003 Columbia disaster.

"At this point the mission has been going along well," John Shannon, deputy manager of the shuttle program, said at a news conference at the Mission Control Center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

"Atlantis looks great," he added.

Shannon confirmed that debris shedding during the shuttle's launch had occurred after the first crucial minutes.

"We saw no debris at all coming off during our critical period" of early liftoff, he said, adding that the first piece of isolation foam was observed after four minutes into the launch.

Video footage showed three possible impacts, two from isolation foam and a third from a piece of ice that fell from the external tank.

But the debris fell off at a higher elevation, where the weak air density minimizes the velocity of projectiles, Wayne Hale, NASA space shuttle program manager, had explained Sunday.

Shannon said that an initial examination of the images taken Sunday during an inspection of the orbiting shuttle had discovered nothing noteworthy, but he stressed the final result of all the analyses would probably be known by Tuesday.

The astronauts -- five men and a woman -- dedicated much of their first full day in space Sunday to a minute visual inspection of the orbiter.

The crew used the orbiter boom sensor system, attached to the end of the shuttle's robotic arm, to closely inspect the wing leading edges and the nose cap for potential damage from debris during the launch, NASA said.

Engineers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration remained focused on a possible sheding of isolation foam during the first two minutes of liftoff, within the critical period.

Columbia's heat shield was pierced by foam insulation that peeled off its massive external fuel tank during liftoff. The damage caused the shuttle to disintegrate as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere in February 2003, killing seven astronauts.

The two shuttle flights conducted since then were focused on correcting the problem and improving flight safety. After Discovery returned in July from its latest mission, NASA declared it was ready to resume construction of the ISS.

Atlantis was supposed to launch on August 27, but the mission was postponed five times due to a lightning strike, a looming tropical storm and technical glitches.

Completing the space station is central to US ambitions to fly humans to Mars.

Atlantis is transporting a 16-tonne segment with two huge solar panels that will double the space station's ability to produce power from sunlight and ultimately provide a quarter of the power for the completed ISS.

Three spacewalks are planned for the construction work.

In addition to Jett, the Atlantis crew comprises co-pilot Chris Ferguson and four mission specialists: Daniel Burbank, Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper, Joe Tanner and Canada's Steve MacLean of the Canadian Space Agency.

NASA plans 15 more shuttle trips to complete the orbiting laboratory by 2010, when the three-shuttle fleet is to be retired.

Related Links
Space Shuttle News at Space-Travel.Com
Space Station News at Space-Travel.Com

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