The six shuttle astronauts hugged and shook hands with the orbiting laboratory's three occupants after a busy week that included three spacewalk to hook up two solar arrays that will double the station's power capabilities.

Atlantis pilot Chris Ferguson pulled the spacecraft off the orbiting laboratory and performed a 360-degree flight around the ISS so astronauts could take pictures of the newly expanded space station.

Ferguson then guided Atlantis away from the ISS and will keep it 74 kilometers (46 miles) from the station for a final inspection of the shuttle's heat shield. The crew will use a camera at the end of the orbiter's robotic arm early Monday to scan the shuttle's nose cap and wing leading edges for possible damage from micrometeorites.

The shuttle will remain at a safe distance from the ISS in case it needs to return to the station due to damage on its protective skin.

The procedure is part of new safety measures created after the Columbia accident, which was caused by a crack on the shuttle's heat shield that led to its disintegration as it returned to Earth in February 2003.

Atlantis was already cleared from damage that could have been caused by debris during liftoff.

Atlantis is scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 5:57 am (0957 GMT) Wednesday.

The five men and one woman crew arrived at the space station on September 11 to install the first addition to the half-finished ISS since November 2002.

The astronauts used the station's Canadian-made robotic arm to attach the 16-tonne truss segment with two solar arrays and spacewalkers set up the system.

Astronauts Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and Joe Tanner conducted the first and third space excursions, while Canadian astronaut Steve MacLean and US counterpart Dan Burbank performed the second spacewalk.

The solar arrays, unfurled Thursday, measure 240 feet (73 meters) and will ultimately provide a quarter of the outpost's power once it is completed. They will be activated during a Discovery shuttle mission planned for December.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration hailed the resumption of the construction work as a success.

"There are a lot a smiles in mission control this morning," Phil Engelauf, one of the flight directors, told reporters at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

"The shuttle mission, although not over yet, is so far just extraordinarily successful in accomplishing the objectives that we set up to undertake on the flight," Engelauf said.

The complex installation of the power-producing solar panels set the stage for future, complicated assembly work.

"All of the rest of the assembly missions are going to be challenging," Atlantis Commander Brent Jett said. "We are off to a good start on assembly. I think we can pass along a lot of the lessons to the future crews."

NASA plans 15 more flights to complete construction of the ISS by 2010, when the three-shuttle fleet is to be retired.

Japan's Kibo experiment module and the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory will be brought up in future missions.

The Atlantis mission was the third shuttle flight since the Columbia accident that left seven astronauts dead.

The last two missions aboard the Discovery shuttle, in 2005 and in July, were aimed at improving safety.

As part of the new safety measures, Atlantis's heat shield was photographed as it headed to the ISS to check for potential damage caused during liftoff.

Columbia was doomed by foam insulation that peeled off its external fuel tank during its launch and pierced its heat shield. Seven astronauts died when the shuttle broke apart during its return to Earth.

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