Damaged Shuttle Reaches Space Station ; WORLD

Jun 11, 01:55 AM

Current Headlines: By Juan Lozano

The crews of Atlantis and the international space station greeted each other with hugs and handshakes yesterday after the space shuttle arrived at the orbiting outpost.

But amid the smiles and salutations, questions remained unanswered about a section of peeled-back thermal blanket on the shuttle. Engineers continued to review photographs of the affected area to determine whether it could pose a problem when Atlantis returns to Earth.

Hatches between the two spacecraft opened about about one-and-a- half hours after the shuttle docked with the space station.

" Atlantis arriving," a US space station resident, Sunita Williams, said after the traditional ringing of a bell. Atlantis' astronauts floated into the space station's Destiny laboratory and hugged each of the station's residents, which includes the commander, Fyodor Yurchikhin, and the cosmonaut Oleg Kotov. After exchanging greetings and receiving a safety briefing, both crews resumed work. Before reaching the space station, the Atlantis commander, Rick Sturckow, told Mr Yurchikhin that the shuttle astronaut Clayton Anderson was ready to relieve Mr Williams on the station. "Are you sure Clay is onboard?" Mr Yurchikhin said. "Yes we checked before we launched from Florida," Mr Sturckow said amid laughter.

Mr Sturckow eased the shuttle into the space station's docking port. Latches fastened the shuttle and orbiting space lab together at 19:36 last night. The shuttle's two-day chase of the space station ended about 210 miles (338km) above south-eastern Australia. It was the first visit this year by a shuttle to the space station. The shuttle was delivering Mr Anderson, the newest member of the space station's crew, as well as a new segment to the orbiting outpost.

Prior to Atlantis' arrival, the astronaut Danny Olivas took additional photographs from inside the shuttle of the area where the thermal blanket had peeled back. The images were sent to Mission Control for analysis. Astronauts inside the space station also took photographs of the shuttle's belly when Atlantis was 600 feet below the orbiting outpost.

Nasa engineers are focusing on a gap about 4 inches by 6 inches that was discovered after Friday's launch from Kennedy Space Center. Engineers were not sure whether stitching on the blanket came loose or whether the blanket, covering a pod of engines near the shuttle's tail, was hit by debris during launch.

The rest of the vehicle appeared to be in fine shape, Nasa said. Sensors reported six hits on the wing during launch, but engineers were not concerned. After the Columbia disaster, a shuttle repair kit was included in all shuttle missions.

Mr Williams will return to Earth aboard Atlantis after more than six months in space.

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