CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., June 7 (UPI) -- Shuttle Endeavor eased into its docking port at the International Space Station on Friday, brimming with fresh food, supplies, equipment and, most important, a new crew to take over running the orbital complex.
"Endeavour, arriving," astronaut Daniel Bursch called out from aboard the space station as he rang the ship's bell, a tradition adopted from the U.S. Navy.
Bursch and his NASA crewmate, Carl Walz, will set a new U.S. spaceflight endurance record upon their homecoming next week. They, along with their Russian commander, Yuri Onufrienko, have been in orbit since Dec. 5.
Endeavour began its two-day chase of the space station upon launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday. Shuttle commander Ken Cockrell took over manual control of the final approach to the outpost, gently pulsing steering jets to lock Endeavour's extended docking ring into the station's berthing slip. The spaceships linked up at 12:25 p.m. ET as the duo sailed 240 miles over the Pacific Ocean.
About two-and-a-half hours later, the shuttle crew floated aboard the station and into the welcoming arms of Onufrienko, Bursch and Walz.
The crews plan to spend the next eight days together, unpacking gear from the shuttle, clearing the station of clutter and working on the station's robotic crane. Endeavour astronauts Franklin Chang-Diaz and Philippe Perrin are scheduled to make three spacewalks to outfit and repair station equipment.
After a safety briefing, the astronauts' first job is to transfer the incoming station crew's custom-made seat liners into the station's emergency escape ship, marking the de facto change-of-command. Once the seat liners are in place, the new crew -- commander Valeri Korzun, flight engineer Sergei Treschev and NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson -- will live and sleep aboard the station. An official change-of-command ceremony is planned for Monday.
