Women make history by linking shuttle, space station

CAPE CANAVERAL - Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Discovery and the international space station joined forces Thursday, linking their spacecraft and kicking off the biggest construction job ever attempted by a single team in orbit.

History was made with the 215-mile-high linkup: It was the first time two female commanders met in space.

Retired Air Force Col. Pamela Melroy steered Discovery in for docking and was the first to enter the space station. She was embraced by Peggy Whitson, the station's skipper.

Before the shuttle docked, Melroy guided Discovery through a backflip so the station crew could photograph the entire shuttle. The pictures were hurriedly beamed down so NASA could determine whether Discovery'sbelly sustained any launch damage from ice or from insulating foam from the fuel tank.

The small patch of ice that shook loose from fuel tank plumbing at the moment of liftoff Tuesday grazed the fuel feed line hatch on the bottom of the shuttle. John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team, likened it to an ice cube falling 10 inches, and said the hatch was unharmed

In fact, Shannon said most if not all of the shuttle's thermal shielding looks to be in good shape, including three wing panels that a safety engineering group urged to have replaced before the flight. Further analysis is needed before NASA can say definitively that Discovery suffered no significant launch damage. But unless something new pops up, engineers see no need for additional inspections.

The first of a record-tying five space walks is set for today.

Astronauts Scott Parazynski and Douglas Wheelock will be outside as a bus-sized compartment named Harmony is unloaded from Discovery's payload bay and attached to the space station by a robotic arm.

Harmony, which was made in Italy, will serve as the docking port for the European and Japanese laboratories that will be delivered on the next three shuttle flights.

The two spacewalkers will remove a broken antenna from the station and pack it aboard Discovery for the ride back and prepare a space station girder for relocation later in the flight.

Moving that girder will be like a ballet, Shannon said. "It's very tough," he said.

[Last modified October 26, 2007, 01:43:24]