Discovery 7

Monday afternoon the Canada Arm 2 (hooked onto the Space Station) is pulling out the Leonardo Module as they head into orbital sunrise. The Canada Arm 1 is hooked to the Space Shuttle.

Canada Arm 2 is controlled from inside the Space Station by these two guys. Past them is the hatchway into the Space Shuttle.

Discovery 6

Once the Shuttle gets real close, it's docking assembly is extended a bit and slides into the ISS dock, where it is hooked by grapple hooks and screws. When everything is set, the docks screw themselves together ( called mating) and at last you have a hard dock. They will go through over an hour testing the airlock and seals before the hatches are opened and allow the shuttle crew into the ISS.

Discovery 5

View from the Shuttle coming in for the Dock.

Discovery 4

On the ISS you can see the European Space Agency habitat just left of the docking port #5 where the Shuttle will dock.

The satellite looking thing in the Shuttle cargo bay is the Leonardo Multi purpose logistics module (a mouthfull!) which has 8 TONS of supplies in it that will be transferred to the Station AFTER it is taken out and hooked up to the station on Tuesday afternoon.

Also the beginning of the Flip maneuver to inspect the Shuttle tiles.

Discovery 3

Discovery 2

Discovery

I had time to watch Discovery coming up to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) and while it is a rather slow process... it is an EXACT process. These are some of the images starting from when the do a flip so the ISS can take hundreds of Hi Resolution photos within 90 seconds to check the heat shield of the Orbiter. This is what the Shuttle sees coming up on the Space Station.