Discovery crew inspects shuttle's heat shield

The crew of the space shuttle Discovery spent parts of their first full day in space inspecting the heat shield of the craft and preparing to dock with the International Space Station.

NASA said the seven-member crew of Discovery were awakened at 2:30 p.m. ET Saturday following their late Friday night launch from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Discovery's 13-day mission will see it deliver supplies and a new crew member to the orbiting space station. Discovery is to dock with the ISS on Sunday.

In the early hours of Saturday morning following the 11:59 p.m. ET Friday launch,  NASA officials said they were relieved not to have seen foam flying off the external fuel tank as the vehicle blasted into space.

Space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier said early Saturday that more analysis was needed to determine whether any debris from the tank hit the orbiter.

NASA was surprised by the amount of the insulation that came off the fuel tank when the shuttle Endeavour went into space last month. The foam caused minor damage to the shuttle.

NASA said pilot Kevin Ford and mission specialists Pat Forrester and Jose Hernandez were to survey the shuttle’s heat shield using the shuttle's robotic arm and specialized cameras.

The crew shot video of the orbiter’s nose cap and the leading edges of its wings. The review began about 6:30 p.m. ET and was expected to last well into the night.

The imagery will be reviewed by specialists to ensure there was no damage from liftoff.

Overnight, the shuttle's flight control team said one of two small steering jets that flank the orbiter nose failed due to a leak.

"This will have no impact to docking, other mission activities or entry, but the crew will close a manifold to isolate both jets and disable them from use for the remainder of the mission," NASA said in a release.