Space crews meet, greet, get to work

Astronauts from space shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station greeted one another with hugs and smiles yesterday 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 320 km 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.