US space shuttle Atlantis arrived at the International Space Station to deliver a last batch of supplies to the orbiting outpost on the final flight of the US shuttle programme.
Commander Chris Ferguson gently eased Atlantis into its parking slip on the station's Harmony node as the spacecraft soared 370km (230 miles) over the Pacific Ocean.
After a 30-year history that has cost nearly $200 billion and claimed the lives of 14 astronauts, the shuttles are being retired to make way for a new generation of spacecraft that President Barack Obama says will put US astronauts on an asteroid and then on to Mars.
The docking capped a two-day journey that began with an emotional send-off from the Kennedy Space Center, where about 750,000 spectators gathered on Friday to watch the shuttle thunder into the sky for the programme's 135th and final flight.
About an hour before docking, Ferguson gently somersaulted Atlantis so the crew aboard the station could photograph the shuttle's delicate heat-resistant tiles.
‘Poetry in motion,’ said mission commentator Rob Navias as television cameras aboard the station relayed video of the sleek spaceship slowly back-flipping over the cloud-speckled northern Atlantic Ocean.
The thousands of pictures will be sent to ground control teams to analyse for signs of damage to Atlantis' heat shield. This safety procedure was added for all shuttle missions to the station following the 2003 Columbia accident.
Seven astronauts died when Columbia broke apart as it attempted to return to Earth with a badly damaged heat shield.
Preliminary assessments showed Atlantis was in good shape after its launch. The only problem that has cropped up so far is a computer unit shutdown early today.
Three other computers were used for the rendezvous and docking and NASA hopes to recover the failed unit later.
Atlantis carries more than five tonnes of food, clothing, spare parts, science equipment and other supplies for the station, a $100 billion project involving 16 nations that took more than a decade to assemble.
NASA devoted 37 shuttle missions to building and outfitting the outpost. The shuttle's legacy also includes launching and servicing the Hubble Space Telescope and dispatching dozens of planetary probes and Earth-orbiting satellites.
Cargo runs to the space station are being turned over to private companies Space Exploration Technologies and Orbital Sciences Corp. Both firms plan to begin deliveries for NASA next year.
The supplies aboard Atlantis will buy some time in case they encounter delays.
The shuttle's retirement will leave the US without the means to fly people into space on its own. Instead, NASA will pay Russia to ferry astronauts to the station until US commercial companies are ready to provide that service.
Atlantis' sister ships Discovery and Endeavour already have completed their final flights, so NASA is relying on Soyuz capsules to serve as space ‘lifeboats.’
