Space shuttle Atlantis docked with the international space station on Saturday, delivering Europe's two (b) billion dollar research lab after years of delay.

One NASA commentator described the scene.

And the flight control team confirming contact between the two vehicles docking at 1117am Central Time off the south-west coast of Australia.

With commander Stephen Frick at the helm, Atlantis slowly and carefully pulled up to the space station and latched on after performing a giant backflip to give NASA a look at the ship's thermal shield.

The backflip, a routine manoeuvre since the Columbia disaster in 2003, allowed station crew members to zoom in for pictures of its upper surfaces and belly.

Engineers on the ground will scrutinize the images for signs of damage.

Mission Control also asked station commander Peggy Whitson and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko to take some extra pictures of a thermal insulating blanket on the shuttle that was sticking up.

The Columbus lab is the European Space Agency's main contribution to the space station.

During their week-long joint mission, the astronauts aboard the linked shuttle-station complex will install and start setting up the 7-metre Columbus lab.