The crew of the U.S. shuttle Discovery docked onto the International Space Station on Wednesday. As the hatch between the two space ships opened, the seven astronauts embraced the International Space Station's six crew members, who took pictures and video-taped the occasion. It marked the first time ever that four women were in orbit together, as well as the first time two Japanese astronauts were in space at the same time. The space station's Russian commander, Oleg Kotov, welcomed the new arrivals, who brought tonnes of supplies, racks of scientific experiments and other gear needed to service the orbiting outpost. Discovery blasted off Monday from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The 13-day mission is one of the last before the U.S. shuttle fleet is retired at the end of this year after 30 years of service. Discovery's seven member crew includes three female mission specialists while a fourth, American astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson, is on the space station, arriving there Sunday on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The women astronauts joining Dyson are mission specialists Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, 34, a former high school science teacher; Stephanie Wilson, 43, a veteran of two shuttle missions; and Yamazaki, 39, an astronaut with the Japanese space agency since 1996. The rest of Discovery crew are mission commander Poindexter, 48; co-pilot Jim Dutton, 41; mission specialist and spacewalker Rick Mastracchio, 50; and fellow spacewalker Clay Anderson, 51.
