Shuttle and station crews meet, greet and get to work

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Astronauts from space shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station greeted one another with hugs and smiles on Thursday to begin a joint 12-day mission to install a Japanese laboratory and Canadian robotic system.

Endeavour docked with the space outpost late on Wednesday as they flew 200 miles above Singapore, two days after the shuttle launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

A little later, the hatches were opened and the 10 astronauts from the two ships floated into their happy meeting, then went straight to work.

Endeavour is carrying the first part of Kibo, a Japanese space module that was to be attached to the station during a spacewalk starting on Thursday night.

Kibo, which means "hope" in English, is Japan's primary contribution to the $100 billion station, a project of 15 countries.

Two other sections of Kibo will be flown up on later flights and it will be the largest laboratory on the station when finished early next year.

Endeavour also ferried up a Canadian robotic system known as Dextre, which will be used to perform detailed work on the station exterior that previously required spacewalking astronauts.

The Endeavour crew is scheduled to perform five spacewalks during its stay. On one of them, astronauts will test a heat shield repair technique to prepare for a shuttle mission later this year to work on the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA wants to be assured that the repair works because the Hubble shuttle will be too far from the space station to take refuge there should it be damaged.

Flight director Mike Moses said Endeavour looked to have emerged from Tuesday's launch in good shape, based on early results from an in-flight inspection by a robot arm equipped with laser and cameras.

NASA experts were still studying the imagery beamed down by Endeavour, but "everything looks really good," he told reporters at Johnson Space Center.

A possible bird impact shortly after launch has now been ruled out.

"It didn't come near the vehicle," Moses said. "There's no issue there."

As Endeavour approached the station on Wednesday, commander Dominic Gorie slowly back-flipped the ship so the station crew could snap photos of its belly tiles.

Before the shuttle leaves the station, it will undergo one more inspection with the sensor-laden robot arm.

The multiple inspections are now standard procedure as NASA tries to avoid another accident like the disintegration of space shuttle Columbia in 2003.

Heat shield damage at launch that went undetected was blamed for the shuttle's breakup as it descended from space on its way to landing in Florida, killing the seven astronauts on board.

NASA is aiming to complete construction of the space station, now about 60 percent finished, by 2010, when the aging shuttle fleet is set to be retired.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)