Wed, 07 Apr 2010 04:32:49 -0500
At 5:11 a.m. EDT, the crews opened shuttle and station hatches. Discovery's seven-person crew joined the six-person space station crew, beginning more than a week of work together. Four women are aboard the same spacecraft for the first time as Discovery Mission Specialists Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, Stephanie Wilson and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Naoko Yamazaki join Expedition 23 Flight Engineer Tracy Caldwell Dyson. Yamazaki and Expedition 23 Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi are the first JAXA Astronauts to fly in space at the same time.
Commander Alan Poindexter docked space shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station's Harmony node at 3:44 a.m. At the time they connected, the two spacecraft were flying 225 miles over the Caribbean sea near Caracas, Venezuela. Poindexter and his crew completed the rendezvous operation without the failed shuttle Ku-band radar, relying instead on an array of other navigation tools to precisely track the space station.
NASA Television will air a Mission Status Briefing at 6:30 a.m. with STS-131 lead shuttle Flight Director Richard Jones.
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