Two days after launching from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, the space shuttle Endeavour arrived at the International Space Station this morning, docking at 6:14am Eastern time.
"A great day in space," flight director Gary Horlacher said in a morning press conference.
The crew woke up at 10:56pm Eastern to the sound of Train's "Drops of Jupiter." The song is a favorite of Pilot Greg Johnson's son Matt, who celebrates a birthday tomorrow.
By 3:38am, Endeavour started its terminal initial burn, which gives the shuttle that extra push towards the ISS. Commander Mark Kelly fired Endeavour's Orbital Maneuvering System engine for 10 seconds, bringing the shuttle about 600 feet below the station.
Kelly then started a nine-minute Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver, known as the "backflip." This allowed Commander Dmitry Kondratyev and Flight Engineers Paolo Nespoli and Cady Coleman, who are already at the ISS, to take about 500 digital photos of Endeavour as it made its approach. Specifically, they focused on the shuttle's thermal protection tiles; Mission Control will examine the shots to see if Endeavour's heat shield sustained any damage during launch.
With the backflip completed, Endeavour docked with the ISS at 6:14am. Both spacecrafts were about 220 miles up and above the east of Chile at the time of docking, NASA said. The hatches between the shuttle and the ISS were scheduled to open at 8:36am, but that actually occured about an hour ahead of schedule at 7:38am. This morning, the crew is scheduled to transfer the Express Logistics Carrier 3, a platform designed to support the external cargo mounted to the ISS, from the shuttle's robotic arm to the ISS. Items on the ELC3 include a spare ammonia tank, a high-pressure oxygen tank, two S-band antennas, and 10 circuit breakers.
Mission Specialists Mike Fincke and Drew Feustel will then transfer the spacesuits and spacewalk equipment to the station's Quest airlock in preparation for the 16-day mission's first spacewalk, scheduled for Friday.
There are now 12 astronauts at the ISS. On May 23, space station crew members Dmitry Kondratyev, Cady Coleman, and Paolo Nespoli will return to Earth. Andrey Borisenko, Alexander Samokutyaev, and Ron Garan will remain on the ISS until the rest of the Expedition 28 crew arrives on June 9.
Endeavour is the second to last shuttle launch for NASA's space program. Atlantis will be the final shuttle to travel to the ISS; NASA officials said they will determine a launch date later this week or early next week, likely sometime in early July.