Astronauts transform space station

ASTRONAUTS yesterday began the most complex and challenging construction project ever attempted in space.

Their mission is to attach a module, about the size of a single-decker bus, to the international space station, increasing its size from a three-bedroom to a five-bedroom house.

They began the first of five spacewalks planned to take place during the space shuttle Discovery's nine-day stay at the orbiting outpost 220 miles above Earth.

The addition of the 14,300kg Harmony module will allow the number of permanent crew members to increase to more than three for the first time since the first components were sent into space in 1998.

Pamela Melroy, Discovery's commander, who is enjoying her third trip into space, said: "That there are people this smart, who can pull together the complexity of this and make it work and make it run, and make things happen, that are for the benefit of everybody, is absolutely amazing."

NASA intends using the station as a staging post for its Orion spacecraft, scheduled for its first manned test flight in 2013 and intended to return Americans to the moon before the end of the next decade.