The space shuttle Discovery had an early morning linkup with the International Space Station on Saturday, on a mission to provide fresh personnel and supplies to the orbiting ISS.
“Everything is in good shape on the station, as on Discovery,” said NASA spokesman Rob Navias.
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the 12-day mission is carrying a team of seven astronauts, including a relief team to replace the three-member Alpha team stationed at the ISS since November.
The current mission marks the first phase of European collaboration, with the deployment of the Leonardo Multi-purpose Logistics Module — on its first trip to the ISS.
One of three pressurized cargo-carrying modules built by Italy’s space agency, the Leonardo “moving van” will shuttle equipment to and from the station aboard the shuttle for experiments to be performed in the ISS’ US laboratory module Destiny or the future European laboratory Columbus.
Leonardo, and in the future, its sister modules Raffaello and Donatello, will be brought back to Earth laden with the contents of the experiments.
Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachov and US astronauts Susan Helms and James Voss hitched a ride on Discovery to the station, where they will take over for US astronaut William Shepherd and Russians Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalyov.
Two space walks are planned on the mission, with the first scheduled for late Saturday into early Sunday.
A number of other experiments are planned, including research on the effects of weightlessness on the human body.
Discovery is scheduled to return to Kennedy Space Center on March 20.
