Washington  - The space shuttle Discovery docked with the International Space Station late Sunday bringing a moving van full of new equipment and experiments that mark a huge advance in the station's capacity as an orbiting laboratory.

The shuttle docked at 8:54 pm (0054 GMT Monday) after performing a backflip manoeuvre allowing astronauts to take photos of the craft's heat shield for any damage sustained during launch.

Discovery lifted off in a midnight launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Friday after days of postponements due to a questionable valve on the shuttle's external fuel tank and poor weather.

Weather forced a delay of a planned takeoff on Tuesday and then problems with the valve scrubbed a scheduled liftoff Wednesday. NASA then sought to fire up Discovery early Friday, but elected to postpone it again to review data in connection to the valve.

The current planned 13-day mission is designed to transport new equipment and experiments to the space station. Astronaut Nicole Stott is expected to relieve Timothy Kopra aboard the ISS, and three spacewalks are planned for the mission.

Discovery's crew for the mission includes six Americans and Swede Christer Fuglesang, flying for the European Space Agency.

The shuttle also carries a 5-million-dollar treadmill named for television comedian Stephen Colbert, who egged on his viewers to vote for him in a NASA naming contest. (dpa)