Discovery arrives at space station for the finals

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Discovery arrived at the international space station on Saturday, making his final visit before being parked in a museum.

"What took you guys so long?" asked the Commander of the space station, Scott Kelly.

Discovery should have come and gone last November, but was founded by cracks of the fuel tank. It blasted off Thursday with just two seconds to spare after being held up by a balky computer on Earth.

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"Yes, I do not know, we kind of waited until the last two seconds," shuttle commander Steven Lindsey said.

The link occurred 220 miles above Australia.

Discovery — flying on his final journey — will spend at least a week at the orbital outpost. It is bringing a room closet style full of supplies, and the first humanoid robot to fly in space.

The compartment is permanently attached to the international space station early next week.

Overall, there are 12 persons aboard the probe joins, representing the United States, Russia and Italy. And in a historic first, four of the five major partners have now ships anchored there, including cargo ships from Japan and Europe. The entire agglomeration has a mass of 1.2 million pounds, including the shuttle service.

Just before pulling, discovery performed a backflip 360 degrees so slow space station cameras might capture any signs of damage. At least four pieces of debris broke the fuel tank during liftoff and one of the strips of foam insulation has hit the belly of the Discovery.

NASA managers do not believe that the shuttle was damaged. That is why it is the loss of foam so late in launching, preventing a hard impact. Hundreds of digital photos taken by two residents of space station should confirm that; Experts on the ground will spend the next day or two poring over all the images.

As a precaution, each crew after the Columbia disaster in 2003 had to carefully check for possible damage to the heat shield, which must be robust to re-enter Earth's atmosphere.

Discovery — the first to perform the manoeuvre somersaulting, back in 2005 — is the first of the fleet to be withdrawn this year. Endeavour and Atlantis close out shuttle program for 30 years.

Discovery is the oldest of three and more traveled, with 143 million miles logged over 39 flights and 26 years.

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The robot has launched aboard Discovery — Robonaut 2, or R2 for short — will remain at the space station, all boxed up for at least another couple of months. This is an experimental machine from bust to be tested before attempting to work inside the orbiting complex simple. The idea is to serve as Assistant R2 finally astronaut.

"We are here!" Robonaut said in an update to Twitter after the reception of Saturday. It actually was sent from a colleague of man on Earth.

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