Shuttle And Station Crews Join Together In Frontier Outpost

And now there are 12.

With shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station now linked in a metallic embrace, hatches between the craft swung open about 12:20 p.m. and the joined spacecraft soared 220 miles above equator.

It was mostly hugs, handshakes and smiles as the six Atlantis astronauts were greeted by the sextet hosting them aboard the frontier outpost.

Atlantis commander Ken Ham was the first to cross the threshold followed by mission specialists Mike Good, Garrett Reisman, Stephen Bowen, Piers Sellers and finally pilot Tony Antonelli.

They were greeted by Expedition 23 commander Oleg Kotov and his two flight engineers: U.S. astronaut T.J. Creamare and Soichi Noguchi of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Also there to welcome them: Expedition 24 crewmates Alexander Skvortson, Mikhail Korniyenko and Tracy Caldwell Dyson.

Kotov led a safety briefing in the forward end of the U.S. Harmony module, which there shuttle docked to a berthing port at 10:28 a.m.

The two crews then quickly went their separate ways, kicking off a seven-day stay that will include the deliver of a fourth Russian docking port and three spacewalks to remove and replace six station batteries and stow a spare U.S. communications antenna.