Shuttle Astronauts to Dock at Space Station Today

Teacher-turned-astronaut Barbara Morgan and her six crewmates have a warm welcome ahead of them when their shuttle Endeavour arrives at the International Space Station (ISS) later today.

Aboard the ISS, Expedition 15 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineers Oleg Kotov and Clayton Anderson - a former member of Endeavour's STS-118 crew - are ready and waiting for their first human visitors since June.

"We're really looking forward to docking with the International Space station tomorrow and joining with our crewmates Clay, Oleg and Fyodor," Morgan, a former McCall, Idaho, schoolteacher, said late Thursday.

Commanded by veteran shuttle flyer Scott Kelly, Endeavour's STS-118 crew is due to dock at the ISS at 1:53 p.m. EDT (1753 GMT) after a two-day orbital chase that began with a Wednesday launch. Tucked aboard the shuttle are about 5,000 pounds (2,267 kilograms) of fresh cargo, a loaded spare parts platform and a new piece of the space station's starboard-side truss.

"The International Space Station is getting visitors from another planet," Anderson, who launched on NASA's earlier June shuttle flight for a crew change, told reporters last week. "I'm really looking forward to seeing them and hopefully they're bringing some goodies for us."

Endeavour is also equipped with a new power transfer system designed to siphon electricity from the ISS rather than rely on its own internal fuel cells. If successful, the system will allow Endeavour's STS-118 astronauts to extend their planned 11-day construction mission by three extra days, NASA has said.

"Clearly it's a real privilege to be up here in space," Kelly said late Thursday. "Everything is going well."

Shuttle back flip on tap

Before Kelly and his crew can begin their ISS construction mission, the shuttle commander will fly Endeavour through a bit of orbital acrobatics.

At about 12:51 p.m. EDT (1651 GMT), Kelly will guide the 100-ton orbiter into a slow back flip to allow astronauts aboard the ISS to photograph Endeavour's belly-mounted heat resistant tiles. Analysts will study the resulting high-resolution images, particularly those that cover three regions where debris may have struck Endeavour during launch, to ensure the shuttle's heat shield is fit for the return to Earth.

Shuttle managers hope the ISS crew's photographs will also show that doors designed to close over Endeavour's two belly-mounted external tank connections after launch are properly latched in place.

"We did see some indications early on that things may have been, in terms of the mechanism, not completely seated, but that later cleared," said Matt Abbott, NASA's lead STS-118 shuttle flight director, adding that the heat shield photography during docking will confirm for sure that the doors are in position.

Endeavour's ISS arrival will be a return of sorts for two STS-118 astronauts. Mission specialist Rick Mastracchio helped prime the station for astronaut crews during NASA's STS-106 mission in 2000 while shuttle pilot Charlie Hobaugh helped deliver the orbital laboratory's U.S. Quest airlock during the STS-104 mission in 2001.

"It'll be really neat to see how it's coming along, how we're proceeding and hopefully where we'll be able to head and go from here," Hobaugh said.

NASA is broadcasting Endeavour's STS-118 mission live on NASA TV. Click here for mission updates and SPACE.com's NASA TV feed.

• VIDEO: Teaching the Future: Teacher-Astronaut Barbara Morgan
• VIDEO: Endeavour's STS-118 Mission Profile
• Complete Space Shuttle Mission Coverage