National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Lab Secured to Space Station


Email to a Friend	<< Back to Full Story

The Columbus laboratory is Europe's biggest single contribution to the International Space Station.

Sixteen years later than initially planned, Columbus was finally delivered and installed this week.

Astronauts on Tuesday, February 12, 2008, planned to enter the science lab—the space station's eighth room—to hook up all the power and data cables.

During its ten-year projected lifespan, the lab will help Earth-based researchers and space station crew to conduct thousands of experiments in life sciences, materials science, fluid physics, and a whole host of other disciplines, all in the weightlessness of orbit, according to the European Space Agency.

Image courtesy European Space Agency