Atlantis docks at space station on last mission

US space shuttle Atlantis arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday to deliver a last batch of supplies to the orbiting outpost on the final flight of the US shuttle program.

Commander Chris Ferguson gently eased Atlantis into its parking slip on the station's Harmony node at 11:07 am EDT (1507 GMT) as the spacecraft soared 230 miles (370 km) over the Pacific Ocean.

"Welcome to the International Space Station for the last time," station flight engineer Ron Garan radioed to the crew.

After a 30-year history that has cost nearly $200 billion and claimed the lives of 14 astronauts, the shuttles are being retired to make way for a new generation of spacecraft that President Barack Obama says will put US astronauts on an asteroid and then on to Mars.

The docking capped a two-day journey that began with an emotional send-off from the Kennedy Space Centre, where about one million spectators gathered on Friday to watch the shuttle thunder into the sky for the program's 135th and final flight.

About an hour before docking, Ferguson gently somersaulted Atlantis so Garan and crew-mates aboard the station could photograph the shuttle's delicate heat-resistant tiles.

"Poetry in motion," said mission commentator Rob Navias as television cameras aboard the station relayed video of the sleek spaceship slowly back flipping over the cloud-speckled northern Atlantic Ocean.

The thousands of pictures will be sent to ground control teams to analyze for signs of damage to Atlantis' heat shield. This safety procedure was added for all shuttle missions to the station following the 2003 Columbia accident.

Seven astronauts died when Columbia broke apart as it attempted to return to Earth with a badly damaged heat shield.

Preliminary assessments showed Atlantis was in good shape after its launch. The only problem that has cropped up so far is a computer unit shutdown early on Sunday. Three other computers were used for the rendezvous and docking and NASA hopes to recover the failed unit later on Sunday.