SPACE CENTER, Houston — Space shuttle Atlantis arrived at the international space station Friday to deliver the $1.4 billion science laboratory Destiny to its new home.
Atlantis docked with space station Alpha 220 miles above the western Pacific Ocean, northeast of New Guinea. Shuttle commander Kenneth Cockrell took manual control of Atlantis' approach to the station and guided his ship in from below.
The lab, which is 28 feet long and 14 feet in diameter, will be mounted onto Alpha on Saturday during the mission's first of three scheduled spacewalks.
Astronaut Marsha Ivins, the robot-arm operator, will have just 2 inches of clearance when she slowly lifts the lab from its tight berth in Atlantis' payload bay.
Hatches between Atlantis and Alpha were to open about two hours after docking Friday.
Atlantis' crew of five astronauts will be the second group of visitors to board Alpha since station commander Bill Shepherd and his two Russian crewmates began their four-month mission on the station Nov. 2.
Shepherd, a U.S. Navy officer, welcomed the crew of the space shuttle Endeavor in December. They were greeted as if boarding a ship at sea, with the astronauts requesting permission to enter.
"We'll probably stay away from naval tradition. I might get tripped up," said Cockrell, who resigned his commission in 1987. "I think it's just going to be big smiles and happy, joyous laughter going on among the eight of us."
After the two crews meet, they will transfer various supplies from the shuttle to the space station, including food, water, computers and some outfitting equipment such as computer hard drives and cables needed to activate Destiny when it is mounted onto Alpha.
Besides being a hub for science research, Destiny will provide a fourth room for the three men living aboard the space station.
Atlantis' astronauts spent their first full day in orbit on Thursday checking their spacesuits and the shuttle robot arm, in preparation for Saturday's spacewalk.
Destiny will enable astronauts and cosmonauts to begin major science work aboard the space station, although not for a while. The first one begins in March.
Experiments will involve fluids, metals, semiconductors, flames, plants and even the astronauts and cosmonauts themselves. NASA wants to learn more about the effects of radiation and weightlessness on the human body before it sends anyone to Mars.