The station trio were busy Tuesday preparing for Atlantis and its crew to join them, and by early in the afternoon reported to ground controllers they had finished preparing the Quest airlock to support the four spacewalks planned for this week."They are ready for your arrival," astronaut Cady Coleman told the Atlantis crew from Mission Control in Houston.
"Fantastic. Thanks for the great news," said mission specialist Steve Smith.
Atlantis began its chase of the 17-story-long complex with the 4:44 p.m. EDT (2044 GMT) Monday liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center.
A last-minute computer glitch -- quickly fixed by someone whom the astronauts said Tuesday ought to get an award -- delayed launch nearly five minutes.
As a result, Atlantis flew into a lower, faster orbit that will allow it to catch up with the station by Wednesday, said NASA spokesman James Hartsfield.
The shuttle crew spent their first full day in space Tuesday preparing for the docking, checking their spacewalking equipment, activating the shuttle's robot arm and wrestling with a new digital television system that is being tested on this flight.
After some early troubles, the crew was able to send down a live picture of the shuttle's cargo bay and the Canadian robot arm.
Meanwhile, mission specialists Ellen Ochoa and Jerry Ross spoke with a trio of news organizations, who concentrated on Ross' entry into the history books as the first person in human history to be launched into space seven times.
"It's actually kind of hard to believe I've been with NASA as long as I have and been given the opportunity to fly on so many different flights," said Ross, who has been an astronaut for 22 years and is also NASA's most experienced spacewalker. "Time has gone by very fast and I've enjoyed every minute of it."
Ross also reported that the mission's three rookies -- pilot Stephen Frick and mission specialists Rex Walheim and Lee Morin -- were doing very well in the weightless environment.
"They're like veterans already. They're just bouncing off the walls and getting things done quickly," Ross said.
Atlantis is to remain joined to the station for seven days while the joint crews install the so-called S-Zero truss -- a $790 million package of wiring, plumbing, computers, navigation instruments and the world's first spaceborne railroad system that will allow the station's robot arm to become more mobile.
Ochoa is to operate the station's Canadarm2 on Thursday to lift S-Zero from Atlantis' cargo bay and place it atop Destiny. There a giant claw will be closed to initially hold in place the truss, which is 44.2 feet (13.5 meters) long and 14.5 (4.4 meters) feet wide.
Four spacewalks during six days will be needed to make the estimated 250 mechanical and 110 electrical connections to securely fasten the truss to Destiny and wire it up so it works.
Smith and Walheim will take on spacewalks No. 1 and 3, while Ross and Morin will pair up for No. 2 and 4 and in the process become NASA's first pair of spacewalking grandfathers.
S-Zero will serve as the centerpiece to which additional truss segments are to be added during the next two years, forming a rigid beam that eventually will stretch greater than the length of a football field.
To that completed keel NASA program managers plan to attach new power-generating solar wings and heat-dispelling radiators, enhanced utilities that will be required before launching new science laboratories built by Japan and the European Space Agency.
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