The space shuttle Discovery successfully docked with the International Space Station today, after carrying out an unprecedented back-flip to allow the crew members to photograph the shuttle's heat shield.

The maneuver followed a decision by NASA on Wednesday to suspend further flights of the space shuttle fleet after determining that a large piece of insulating foam had broken off the external fuel tank of the Discovery shortly after liftoff on Tuesday morning, the same problem that doomed the Columbia and its seven astronauts in the last mission, two and a half years ago.

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