The combined crew of 10 members will spend more than a week transferring a year's worth of supplies and equipment to the space station.

NASA is ending the shuttle program to concentrate resources on deep-space exploration. The agency is working with several commercial U.S. aerospace companies to develop vehicles to replace the shuttles. Until then, Russia's Soyuz spacecraft will ferry U.S. astronauts to and from the space station, while Russian, European and Japanese cargo spacecraft will continue their resupply and waste disposal missions to the station.