Space shuttle Discovery successfully docked at the International Space Station today after its astronauts overcame a rare antenna breakdown that knocked out radar tracking.
Shuttle commander Alan Poindexter and his crew relied on other navigation devices to approach the orbiting outpost.
The two spacecraft came together 350kms above the Caribbean, precisely on time. It was only the second time that a shuttle had to dock with the space station without any radar; the first was 10 years ago.
Poindexter trained for just such an event two weeks ago. As he closed in on the final 250 metres, he radioed, “It’s a lot of fun.”
One of the first matters of business for the 13 crew members - once the hatches swung open - was transmitting detailed laser images of Discovery to Mission Control in Houston.
Astronaut Stephanie Wilson pocketed the computer hard-drive holding all the wing and nose images that were collected yesterday, and handed it over as soon as she crossed the station’s threshold. The antenna breakdown prevented their immediate relay to experts on the ground for analysis.
Nasa needs to scrutinise the data to make sure Discovery suffered no launch damage that could jeopardise its re-entry on April 18th.
The failure of Discovery's dish antenna shortly after Monday's lift-off prevented the astronauts from sending and receiving big packages of information during their first two days in orbit. Video shots also fell by the wayside.
The orbiting crowd includes a record-setting four women, three of whom arrived on Discovery. There are eight Americans, three Russians and, for the first time ever together in space, two Japanese.
PA