How the shuttle docking will look

The replacement Expedition Two crew includes the first woman to inhabit the platform, American astronaut Susan Helms. She will share the station, dubbed Alpha by its current crew, with American colleague Jim Voss and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev.

They will be joined on the flight by Discovery commander James Wetherbee, pilot James Kelly and mission specialists Andrew Thomas and Paul Richards.

Susan Helms will become the second American woman, and only the sixth in the world, to live on a space station.

Space research

As well as delivering a replacement crew for the space station, Discovery will carry up an Italian-built module, Leonardo. The new component is loaded with experiments for the newly installed Destiny science lab.

"During this mission, the Expedition Two crew will conduct a number of experiments that will further our knowledge of the space environment and its impact on the human body," said Nasa official Mike Hawes in a press statement released on Tuesday.

"This would not have been possible without the hard work of the Expedition One crew and the shuttle assembly crews of the past few months, who have installed the US laboratory Destiny and ensured the station has ample power to operate."

The shuttle crew will install Leonardo on the ISS, unload its contents and then return it to Earth.

The shuttle astronauts are due to carry out two spacewalks during their 13-day mission.