For the final time in the programme's history, astronauts entered the International Space Station (ISS) from a space shuttle Sunday, as the Atlantis docked at the orbiting laboratory, according to dpa. The four-member Atlantis crew was welcomed aboard the ISS by the station's crew of six astronauts from the US, Japan and Russia. Commander Chris Ferguson had earlier manoeuvred the shuttle on its last approach of the ISS, executing a "backflip" of the shuttle to expose its underside to the station before completing what NASA flight director Kwatsi Alibaruho in Houston called a "flawless docking." The combined crew of 10 is to begin more than a week of work, unloading supplies and spare parts to keep the ISS stocked through next year. The main aim of the 12-day space flight is to deliver the 3.6 metric tons of provisions and equipment to the human outpost in space. Though the Russian, European and Japanese space agencies can all deliver equipment to the station, no other craft can carry such large heavy loads. NASA is working with commercial companies currently developing spacecraft to deliver cargo, and eventually astronauts, to the ISS. "The supplies they're bringing are really a sort of insurance" until those craft are ready to begin work, Alibaruho said. The astronauts are due to bring home a heavy defective cooling pump from the ISS. The US space agency NASA unfurled a series of statistics to mark the last docking operation: it was Atlantis' 12th docking with a space station and the 46th time a shuttle docked with either the ISS or the Russian Mir station. Atlantis was also the first shuttle to dock with an orbiting station, docking with the Mir in a key moment in US-Russia space relations after decades of competition. It was also the 86th space shuttle rendezvous operation and the 164th proximity operation for a shuttle, in which the vessel works close to another spacecraft. NASA hopes to add an extra day to the flight to allow more time to unload and also to load the shuttle with cargo headed back to Earth. The space agency will decide within days whether it can add the extra day, which would push back Atlantis' planned July 20 return from the anniversary of the first moon landing. The swansong voyage of the Atlantis carries an additional risk as its sibling shuttles Endeavour and Discovery have already been retired. In case of an emergency, the astronauts would need to be rescued by smaller Russian Soyuz spacecraft, one at a time. For this reason, only four astronauts are on board the Atlantis, compared to the usual eight. Atlantis launched on its mission Friday from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, prompting sadness among the NASA workforce as well as fans after 30 years in orbit for the shuttle programme. The ageing fleet is being retired over both long-standing safety concerns and to free up funds to focus on developing a new spacecraft that will be able to reach more distant destinations.
