Atlantis Space Shuttle successfully assembled with ISS Station

Atlantis Commander, Rick Sturckow (right) holds the command on ISS Fyodor Yurchikhin after the Atlantis ship hits the ISS (Photo: AP)

Atlantis Space Shuttle successfully assembled into the ISS International Space Station at 1736 minutes (GMT), at 338km above Southeast Australia.

These hatches connect 2 vessels that open after connecting 90 minutes. This is the first assembly in 2006 between the shuttle and the ISS.

The Atlantis is having a minor problem related to insulation. A part of the shield is released. The engineers are appraising the problem. The problem area images were taken and sent to the ground control mission center for analysis.

Mission manager John Shannon had a press conference at Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, and said that in the next 12 hours, experts will analyze all images and data to decide whether the problem is worrisome or not.

Atlantis and ISS after connecting.Astronauts aboard will make three space walks to build ISS (Photo taken from NASA television)

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