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HOUSTON – When NASA's shuttle Discovery arrived at the International Space Station Sat (Feb. 26), it made some expanse history: It scarred the first instance ever that spaceships from quaternary assorted expanse agencies were cropped unitedly at the same time.

The past moment occurred at 2:16 p.m. EST (1916 GMT), when Discovery arrived at a achievement opening on NASA's Harmony module, a multi-port hub on the expanse station. The shuttle connected digit Slavonic Soyuz expanse capsules and threesome robotic expanse freighters (from Europe, Nihon and Russia) that were also cropped to the orbiting lab.

"That that's most as some assorted visiting vehicles as you can imagine," Discovery traveler Alvin histrion radioed Mission Control in metropolis before the docking.

Truly planetary expanse station

With Discovery's arrival, the expanse station's accumulation jumped to 1.2 meg pounds (544,310 kilograms). It is as long as a sport field, making it the largest man-made scheme in space.

The send is so super that on country nights it can easily be seen with the unassisted eye if you know where to look, and sometimes modify rivals the planet Venus in brightness.

The $100 billion International Space Station has been under cerebration by 15 assorted countries since 1998. It is currently home to sextet crewmembers from the U.S., country and Italia and has most the same turn of experience expanse as a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

Five assorted expanse agencies, representing the United States, Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan, are directive the effort. Of those, only the river Space Agency does not hit a satellite cropped at the expanse send today, though Canada provided the robotic limb and Dextre fix mechanism for the orbiting laboratory. [Photos: Building the International Space Station]

Busy expanse traffic control

In the last some weeks, the send has seen a flurry of spaceship arrivals and departures directive up to Discovery's arrival. Here's a countenance at the busy opening in space:

First, an pilotless Asian load foxiness titled the H-2 Transfer Vehicle-2 (HTV-2) arrived at the expanse send on Jan. 26.

Astronauts used the station's robotic limb to latch onto the HTV-2 craft, which Japan's expanse authority named Kounotori 2 ("Kounotori" is Asian for White Stork), and bespoken it to the station's multi-port Harmony module. Last week, the station's gathering had to advise the Asian foxiness to a assorted parking blot because it would hit closed admittance to Discovery's explosive bay

On Jan. 28 Slavonic launched its robotic expanse freighter Progress 41 toward the station. It arrived digit days later. An senior Slavonic load ship, Progress 40, also undocked from the send to make shack for still another addition: the dweller Space Agency's second pilotless load ship.

ESA launched its Automated Transfer Vehicle 2, titled the ATV-2 Johannes Kepler, on Feb. 16. It arrived at the expanse send on weekday (Feb. 24) – the exact same period that Discovery blamed soured toward the orbiting lab. [Photos: Shuttle Discovery's Final Mission]

The ATV-2 Johannes uranologist arrived at the send less than sextet hours before Discovery raised off.

Discovery launched weekday (Feb. 24) from NASA's President Space Center in Florida. This is Discovery's 39th and test voyage before being old along with the rest of NASA's shuttle information after this year.The shuttle is delivering a newborn hardware shack and a robot robot, titled Robonaut 2, to the International Space Station.

Two Slavonic Soyuz spacecraft, which carried the sextet astronauts aboard the send in teams of three, are also linked to the expanse station.

"It's a pretty awful instance if you conceive most it," Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's expanse dealings chief, said before Discovery launched. "To conceive of every these planetary control stations employed unitedly – it's an awful grouping of dealings and systems to ready every the bits agitated forward. What a enthusiastic instance in spaceflight."

The novelty of so some assorted satellite at the International Space Station has not been forfeited on NASA and its planetary partners.

They wish to initiate a expanse picture conference by cosmonauts flying around the send in a Soyuz satellite if instance allows during Discovery's flight.

A test selection has still to be made, but if allowed, will add an extra period to Discovery's 11-day mission.

SPACE.com managing editor Tariq Malik (@tariqjmalik) contributed to this report. Follow SPACE.com Staff Writer Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Visit SPACE.com for complete news of Discovery's test assignment STS-133.

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