Astronauts prepare for shuttle-space station docking

The shuttle, which made a picture-perfect sunset liftoff Wednesday, is due to dock with the station shortly before noon Florida time (1700 GMT) Friday, and the next day, its crew is to lift the 1.4-billion-dollar lab from Atlantis' cargohold - robot arm operator Marsha Ivins will have only two inches to spare - and attach it to the station. The manoeuvres are crucial because if the 8.5-metre-long, 4.3- metre-wide lab, called Destiny, is damaged during the mission, it could set back the space station construction for years.

The lab will not only be the centre of the station's scientific research, beginning in March when the next shuttle will deliver its first experiments, but it also contains computer equipment that will make it the station's command and control centre. It will also give space travellers extra room on the cramped space station. With the addition of its fourth module, the station will have more living space than the Russian station Mir and the United States' Skylab.

When the station is complete in 2006, Destiny - the first of six labs planned - will support 24-hour-a-day experiments in weightlessness. In preparation for the lab's arrival, the station's three-man crew on Thursday ejected a Russian supply spacecraft, which is now full of trash, to make room for the Atlantis to dock. The supply craft is to burn up in Earth's atmosphere. As for Atlantis' crew, Ivins unfurled the robotic arm, Commander Ken Cockrell checked out the lab and cargo bay via camera, and spacewalkers Bob Curbeam and Tom Jones checked out their spacesuits and the airlock through which they have to travel for their three spacewalks of the 11-day mission.

Pilot Mark Polansky was also to fire Atlantis' rockets to make up the 3,200-kilometre distance between the shuttle and station. Atlantis is on the seventh of 12 shuttle missions scheduled for station construction, a 60-billion-dollar joint project of the United States, Russia, the European Union, Japan and Canada.

(la/dpa)