HOUSTON Atlantis glided smoothly into position and docked with the International Space Station (ISS) early Sunday morning to begin a mission of delivering supplies and installing equipment aboard the orbital outpost.

"Houston, we have a capture light," said mission specialist Dan Burbank after Atlantis attached itself to the 143-foot (42.9-meter) long station at about 1:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (05:51 GMT). Burbank referred to an indicator light on a control panel in Atlantis confirming the two craft were joined.

"Atlantis, Houston, congratulations on a fine rendezvous and docking that was letter perfect," said astronaut Chris Hadfield from Mission Control to congratulate the crew on a near perfect docking. "It was great to watch."

Atlantis made its final approach to the station at about 11 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time when commander Terry Wilcutt fired the orbiters thrusters at about 9 miles (14.4 kilometers) from the station. The orbiter then inched its way underneath and halfway around the station to dock at the top of the U.S.-built Unity node.

Wilcutt and mission specialist Ed Lu attempted to take an air sample in the stations docking node, but a connection broke on the sample bottle and the effort was abandoned.

Mark Ferring, the space stations lead flight director, said the task wasnt critical and was done more to take a sample for future reference. The stations entire atmosphere will be scrubbed and filtered before entry late Monday anyway, he said.

Lu and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko will begin final preparations late Sunday evening for their spacewalk scheduled to start at 1:06 a.m. EDT (05:06 GMT) Monday. The duo will be assisted by mission specialists Dan Burbank, who orchestrates the tasks and is a backup spacewalker, and Rick Mastracchio, who will operate the orbiters robot arm.

Malenchenko, a veteran Mir cosmonaut and spacewalker said wearing a U.S.-built spacesuit and using Russian tools and equipment should present no problem.

"As part of the preparation, all different Russian experts participated, as well as [were] part of the training, so we had two groups of EVA (extravehicular activity) specialists involved who were in charge of our training," he said through a translator. "It was the U.S. EVA specialists here in the U.S. and the Russian EVA group in Russia."

Lu is making his second trip into space and his first spacewalk. Hes talked to veteran spacewalkers about how to take a brief moment to enjoy the scene.

After the spacewalk, Atlantis crew will enter the station late Monday and begin the process of unloading supplies from the Spacehab module in the orbiters payload bay and the Russian Progress supply vehicle already docked with the station. Theyll spend at least five days stowing the supplies and installing equipment to be used by the first resident crew set to occupy the station in late October.

NASA plans one more mission to the station before the crew arrives. Space Shuttle Discovery is set for an October 5 launch to deliver the Z-1 truss which acts as the stations backbone for the solar arrays.