Astronauts get busy with space station stockpiling

(AP) -- The astronauts aboard the orbiting shuttle-station complex will get cracking Monday on all their supply delivery work.

Space shuttle Atlantis has a 21-foot-long canister in its payload bay that's full of food, clothes and other provisions for the International Space Station. The astronauts will use a robot arm to lift the carrier out of the shuttle and attach it to the station. It's enough to keep the outpost going for a full year in the post-shuttle era.

Atlantis is making NASA's final space shuttle flight.

NASA, meanwhile, expects to have a better idea Monday as to whether the joined spacecraft will need to dodge a piece of space junk. The piece of orbiting debris may come too close Tuesday. The size of the object is not known.

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