Article Posted on : - Mar 18, 2009

The STS-119 and Expedition 18 crews greet one another as the shuttle astronauts enter the International Space Station. Photo credit: NASA TV

WASHINGTON (BNS): Space shuttle Discovery docked with the International Space Station at 5:20 pm EDT Tuesday, delivering the final truss segment and pair of US solar arrays and a new crewmember to take up residence aboard the growing orbital scientific complex.

According to NASA, the shuttle and station crews opened hatches and greeted one another at 6:09 pm, beginning more than a week of joint operations between the two crews.

One of the first major tasks of the crews was to swap station crewmember Sandra Magnus for Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. The official swap occurred when a specially fitted seat liner was installed in the Soyuz crew vehicle. That swap at 9 pm signified the official designation change making Wakata an Expedition 18 flight engineer and Magnus a shuttle mission specialist.

Prime business for the crews Wednesday will be to lift the truss segment out of Discovery’s payload bay with the shuttle robot arm and hand it off to the station’s mechanical arm for an overnight stay before Thursday’s permanent installation on the station.
Commander Lee Archambault led the crew of seven, along with Pilot Tony Antonelli, and Mission Specialists Joseph Acaba, John Phillips, Steve Swanson, Richard Arnold and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata on mission STS-119 to the International Space Station.

The STS-119 crewmembers have flown the S6 truss segment and will install the final set of power-generating solar arrays to the station. The S6 truss will complete the backbone of the station and provide one-fourth of the total power needed to support a crew of six.