Discovery transfers cargo to space station

Friday was moving day for the Discovery crew, which transferred thousands of pounds of supplies...

Friday was moving day for the Discovery crew, which transferred thousands of pounds of supplies and cargo from the space shuttle to the International Space Station.

‘‘Have fun putting a new room on the station today—the float-in closet. Every home needs one,’’ flight controllers in Houston wrote the shuttle crew in their daily morning electronic message.

The astronauts moved a huge cargo container, nicknamed Leonardo, onto the space station by robotic arm. Among the goodies awaiting the space station crew were a new stationary bicycle for exercise, an oxygen generator that will eventually allow the space station to support six inhabitants, a machine that cools the station’s cabin air and a lab freezer for scientific samples.

Discovery’s six remaining shuttle crew members awoke to a recording of The Beatles’ Good Day Sunshine. The astronauts have to take close-up pictures of the orbiter’s underside and panel using the robotic arm and boom to reassure engineers that there’s no damage like the kind that doomed Columbia’s flight in 2003.

–MIKE SCHNEIDER