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Sunita enters her new home in space

She will be aboard the International Space Station for six months, replacing German Thomas Reiter

Photo: AP

LEISURE TIME: In this photo provided by NASA, astronaut Sunita L. Williams (right) and European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang, enjoy a lighter moment as they prepare to open food packages on the mid-deck of space shuttle Discovery on Sunday.

Houston: Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams moved to her new home over 350 km above the earth as space shuttle Discovery docked with the International Space Station (ISS), after two days of orbital pursuit.

"Tally-ho on the new home," Sunita called out as Discovery prepared for docking onto the ISS as it moved 354 km above Bangladesh.

She and six other astronauts, who arrived at the ISS, had a hard time moving around in weightlessness compared to their station counterparts. Some of them had to be held down for a group photo so that they did not drift away.

Crew rotation

Sunita replaced German astronaut Thomas Reiter on the ISS, who returns to earth after a five-month sojourn in space.

The crew rotation became official when their custom-made seatliners were swapped out in the Soyuz spacecraft docked to the ISS.

The Discovery crew also brought with them the P5 integrated truss structure, which will be installed at the space station in the three spacewalks. It would help reconfigure and redistribute power generated by the station's newest solar arrays.

Sunita, the second Indian origin woman to undertake a space mission after astronaut Kalpana Chawla, will stay in the ISS for another six months.

"It is beautiful. The solar arrays are golden," she said as she spotted the massive solar wings of the ISS glimmering against the black void.

An hour before the docking, Discovery commander Mark Polansky guided the spacecraft through a back-flip manoeuvre to allow the station crew to take pictures of the heat shield.

After hugs, handshakes and picture shots, the Discovery crew conducted an inspection of the shuttle wing and prepared for Wednesday's spacewalk.

The crew used a camera on the International Space Station's robotic arm to inspect the reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) panels on the wing.

Minor disturbance

Leading-edge wing sensors registered a minor disturbance in this area of the wing and engineers will analyse the imagery captured during the inspection.

The radar tracking of the shuttle's climb and the debris impact sensors had not detected any major debris strikes. "There is nothing anyone is excited about so far," Mission Management Team chairman John Shannon said at a briefing here.

Analysing imagery

The team had completed the first review of Sunday's inspection of the orbiter's heat shield and started the analysis of imagery of Discovery's underside, he said.

Discovery is due back at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on December 21. — PTI

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