Florida: Discovery, while making its final visit before being parked at a museum, has been arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday.
Discovery should have come and gone last November, but was grounded by fuel tank cracks. It blasted off Thursday with just two seconds to spare after being held up by a balky ground computer.
The linkup occurred 220 miles (354 kilometres) above Australia.
Discovery — flying on its final voyage — will spend at least a week at the orbiting outpost. It’s carrying a closet-style chamber full of supplies as well as the first humanoid robot to fly in space.
The compartment will be attached permanently to the space station early next week.
Altogether, there are 12 people aboard the joined spacecraft, representing the United States, Russia and Italy. And in a historic first, four of the five major partners have vessels docked there right now, including cargo ships from Japan and Europe. The entire conglomeration has a mass of 1.2 million pounds (540,000 kilograms), including the shuttle.
Discovery — the first to perform the somersaulting manoeuvr, back in 2005 — is the first in the fleet to be retired this year. Endeavour and then Atlantis will close out the 30-year shuttle program by midsummer.
Discovery is the oldest of the three and the most travelled, with 143 million miles (230 million kilometres) logged over 39 flights and 26 years.
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