A gigantic crane hoisted the Europeans' space lab out of a shipping container early this morning at the Space Station Processing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center.
The dangling module, about the size of a double-decker bus, then "flew" across the open bay of the processing facility and into a work stand where it will spend about 15 months being tested and readied for its late 2007 flight aboard the space shuttle.
The early-morning operation brought out top managers and their support teams from NASA and the European Space Agency, a collaboration of 14 countries that funded and developed what will be one of the orbiting outpost's three laboratory modules.
NASA plans a ceremony Friday to celebrate the module's arrival at the launch site.
Click to enlarge this NASA image, taken by photographer Jim Grossmann, of the crane operation.
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