The shuttle also will hook up an Italian-built cargo module and bring the sectionīack to Earth after the station's three-member crew takes aboard the food, clothesĮndeavour will spend one week docked with Alpha. The Americans Rominger, Ashby, Scott Parazynski and John Phillips are joined by Canadian Chris Hadfield and two crew members from the European Space Agency, Russian Yuri Lonchkov and Italian Umberto Guidoni. NASA has called this the most international crew ever to fly a shuttle mission.

Images from top to bottom show Endeavour's path as it nears and then locks onto the docking port But the two crews will not officially greet each other until Monday, since hatches between the two spacecraft must remain closed during spacewalks. It is so long that it would not fit inside the bay unless it was folded, and so heavy - 3,618 pounds (1,644 kilograms) of aluminum, steel and graphite epoxy - that it could not support its own weight on Earth.Įndeavour's astronauts are the first visitors to space station Alpha since current crew members Yury Usachev, Susan Helms and James Voss arrived March 8. The new arm will not be locked into one place aboard the station - it will be able to move along the station's hull to reposition itself as needed to continue the station's construction. Later additions will allow it to do detailed repair work as The new robot arm, dubbed the Canadarm 2, is designed to move station modules andĮxperiments about. The new arm will be attached to the space station. It is carrying a 58-foot mechanical device known as the 'Big Arm,' a larger and more advanced version of the Canadian-built robot appendage located aboard the shuttle. 'We wind up within an inch of our target when we dock.'Įndeavour lifted off Thursday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. We use cameras, computers, lasers and different sensors, including radar,' Rominger said in a broadcast interview. Italian, had been maneuvering the shuttle into position for Saturday morning'sĬNN's Eric Philips has more on Endeavors' mission, including installation of a robotic arm Rominger and a multinational crew of six, including a Canadian, a Russian and an

Rominger and pilot Jeffrey Ashby slowed the 100-ton vessel to a relative speed of about five feet per minute before docking.

CDT Saturday, about 243 miles (388 kilometers) over the Pacific Ocean near New Zealand. Shuttle commander Kent Rominger nudged the Endeavour up to the docking port at 8:59 a.m. HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) - The space shuttle Endeavour docked at the international space station on Saturday, bringing a robot arm to help the station astronauts add on to their orbital outpost. A view of the international space station as the space shuttle Endeavour docks

Weight of space shuttle endeavour