Crew To Begin Assembly Mission Tuesday Morning

ANN REALTIME REPORTING 12.11.06 1711 EST: Moments ago, the space shuttle Discovery's two-day chase of the International Space Station ended, as the orbiter docked with the ISS while flying over south central China, northwest of Bangladesh.

The STS-116 crew began rendezvous operations around 11:37 am Monday. Commander Mark Polansky began guiding Discovery through a back-flip maneuver (shown below) about an hour before the docking, to allow the station's Expedition 14 crew to take pictures of Discovery’s heat shield.

Engineers will analyze those images closely, to determine if Discovery sustained any appreciable damage to its heat shield during launch. Images taken by the shuttle’s robotic arm and an extension boom-mounted sensor system Sunday showed no damage to heat shielding on Discovery's wing leading edges and nose.

Discovery is carrying the P5 integrated truss structure in its payload bay. The STS-116 crew will conduct three spacewalks to install the P5 and to reconfigure and redistribute power generated by the station.

Also onboard the shuttle is the station’s next crew member. Astronaut Sunita Williams will join the Expedition 14 crew about an hour after she enters the station for the first time. The hatches between Discovery and the station are slated to open at about 7:02 pm.

A little after 8:15 pm EST, Discovery’s robotic arm will lift the 4,100-pound P5 truss segment from the shuttle's cargo bay. It will be handed off to the station’s arm, where it will stay during the crews’ sleep period, in preparation for its installation on Tuesday.

To prepare for the mission's first spacewalk, astronauts Bob Curbeam and Christer Fuglesang will spend Monday night in the station’s airlock, where pressure will be reduced to 10.2 psi -- roughly equal to the atmosphere on Earth at about 10,000 feet MSL. The airlock “campout” at the lower pressure protects against decompression sickness, commonly called "the bends," as the two go to the even lower pressure of spacesuits on Tuesday.

FMI: www.nasa.gov/shuttle