Japan joins the global space village

A HANDSHAKE of hope 220 miles above Earth will tomorrow bring down the last remaining border on mankind's biggest ever partnership in space.

The space shuttle Endeavour will dock with the International Space Station on a mission that will see the last of the £50 billion outpost's "big five" owners – Japan – finally stake its pitch as astronauts deliver and install Kibo, a giant storage module whose name means "hope".

While Japanese astronauts have worked on the ISS before, it will be the first time since construction began ten years ago that the nation has actually owned a piece of it, joining the US, Russia, Europe and Canada.

"We celebrate your mission as you expand the International Space Station into our first global village in space," Nasa's mission control told Endeavour's crew, signalling the all-clear minutes before the shuttle's spectacular night-time launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

"You just made people smile around the world and you've got seven smiling faces on board here too," the shuttle's commander, Dominic Gorie, 50, radioed back from the launch pad as he and his six crew prepared for lift-off.

"We'd like to say konnichiwa, domo arigato and banzai!" – Japanese for "hello", "thank you" and, loosely translated, "hurrah".

Thrust from the launch pad by a giant ball of flame, the 100-ton craft could be seen scorching its way into space from thousands of miles around. Cameras mounted on the external fuel tank captured footage of a chunk of debris falling away past the orbiter's right wing 83 seconds into launch, though Nasa managers said that they did not believe it struck the fragile structure.

Mission controllers also noted two systems failures aboard the shuttle – one relating to its ability to manoeuvre and the other to an equipment cooling mechanism. However, back-ups kicked in and both incidents were classified as "minor issues" that should not affect the mission.

Cmdr Gorie's team – made up of six Americans and one Japanese – is scheduled to board the ISS at 3:20am GMT tomorrow, when they will be greeted with hugs and handshakes by the station's three-strong American, Russian and French crew.

During the course of five spacewalks – a record for a single shuttle mission – crew members will install the first stage of Japan's Kibo module, which will be used for the storage of laboratory equipment, tools and zero-gravity experiments, and assemble the Canadian-built Dextre, a giant two-armed robot that will perch outside the ISS and take the place of humans on certain future construction tasks.

Adding to the international flavour, Jules Verne – the European Space Agency's unmanned delivery vehicle, which launched from French Guiana at the weekend – will hover nearby, carrying a cargo of food, water, air and other supplies ready for delivery when Endeavour undocks in two weeks. Tracking stations around the world, including in Spain and New Zealand, will keep watch from the ground.

"I would characterise this as the international year," said Bill Gerstenmaier, Nasa's associate administrator for space operations. "We're really bringing our partners on board the space station, we're learning to operate as an international team."

But as the Russian space agency, Roskosmos, prepares to launch two new cosmonauts to the ISS from Kazakhstan next month, there was a hasty change to its passenger list yesterday.

Ko San, 31, a robotics expert, was to have hitched a ride into space alongside the cosmonauts under a £10 million deal struck between Roskosmos and the government of South Korea, which selected him from among 36,000 applicants to become the first Korean in space. Yesterday, however, Mr Ko's name was removed from the manifest at the request of Roskosmos, after he was twice caught removing "sensitive training documents" from a Russian space training facility.

He "accidentally" sent one home to Korea with his personal belongings, and in a second incident read a book that was given to him at a Russian training facility but which was on a list of materials not authorised to view.

The Korean government described the episode as an innocent mistake, claiming that the studious Mr Ko – who has now been replaced by Yi So-Yeon, 29 – is simply a bookworm who had been overly "zealous to perform better and became covetous".

Despite low-level mutterings of a spy scandal, neither Roskosmos nor Nasa appeared to be treating the incident as such last night, with Mr Ko allowed to continue his training in Russia lest Ms Yi should have to drop out at a later point.

But it illustrated the seriousness with which the ISS's partners view infractions of the strict codes of conduct relating to astronauts and cosmonauts, and "space tourists" like Mr Ko.

Q&A: GROUND CONTROL

Who owns the ISS?

A partnership of the United States, Russia, Canada and Japan, and 11 of the 16 nations that form the European Space Agency. Brazil and Italy are participant nations.

Who controls it?

Each nation operates its own component parts. For example, Nasa directs operations in the US-owned Destiny laboratory and Unity and Harmony modules.

Is there a chain of command?

The member nations are treated as equal partners and most on-the-ground decisions are taken jointly.