After a journey that started at the weekend, the European Columbus laboratory arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday afternoon.
Europe's largest single contribution to the International Space Station, the laboratory will provide internal payload accommodation for various scientific experiments over an expected operational lifetime of 10 years.
Ahead of its transatlantic journey, the 4.5-meter (14.6 foot) diameter cylindrical module – with 75 cubic meters (2,650 cubic feet) of interior space – was packed into the transportation container at the EADS Space Transportation facility in Bremen, Germany.
On Sunday, technicians loaded Columbus onto an Airbus A300-600 Beluga heavy-lift aircraft at Bremen Airport. With overnight stopovers in Iceland and Canada along the way, and two short refueling stops in Greenland and Cleveland, Ohio, the aircraft touched down in Florida on Tuesday.
NASA will welcome Columbus officially during a ceremony on Friday at Kennedy's Space Station Processing Facility.
