Cape Canaveral - Bearing gifts, chocolates and a $1.4 billion laboratory, the crew of the space shuttle Atlantis successfully docked its spacecraft with the International Space Station yesterday as both sped around the Earth at 5 miles (8 km) per second.
"Alpha. . . here we come," said the shuttle commander Mr Ken Cockrell, using the station's radio sign as Atlantis was 40 feet (12 metres) away.