spacetoday.net: Discovery docks with ISS

Posted: Tue, Dec 12, 2006, 8:30 AM ET (1330 GMT)
STS-116: ISS docking (NASA)

The space shuttle Discovery docked with the International Space Station on Monday afternoon, and shortly afterwards shuttle crewmembers performed an additional inspection after detecting a possible debris hit earlier in the day. Discovery docked with the Destiny module of the ISS at 5:12 pm EST (2212 GMT) Monday, after a normal approach.. Later Monday, though, NASA instructed the Discovery crew to inspect an area on the outer edge of the orbiter's left wing, after accelerometer data indicated a minor impact there earlier in the day. Images of the affected panels showed no obvious signs of damage. The next major milestone of the mission will be on Tuesday afternoon, when astronauts Robert Curbeam and Christer Fuglesang will install the P5 truss segment onto the ISS.