Hatches to the U.S. Harmony module swung open high above Earth today as the crews of shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station christened the gateway to yet-to-be-launched European and Japanese science laboratories.
Station skipper Peggy Whitson did the honors with an assist from Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency. The Harmony module was built in Italy by a consortium of Italian and European aerospace companies.
"We think Harmony is a very good name for this module because it represents the culmination of a lot of international partner work and it will allow additional international partner modules to be added on," Whitson said.
Added Nespoli: "It is very good to be here in this very beautiful piece of hardware."
About the size of a small school bus, the Harmony module is the first pressurized addition to the international outpost in more than six years -- since the Russian Pirs docking compartment arrived in September 2001.
The station had a habitable volume of about 15,000 cubic feet -- about the same size as a 1,500-square-foot house. The Harmony module increases its size by about 2,600 cubic feet -- or about 17.5 percent.
Named by schoolchildren in a nationwide contest, the Harmony module will serve as a pressurized passageway to the European Columbus laboratory and the Japanese Kibo science research facility. Columbus is to be launched aboard Atlantis on Dec. 6 and the Kibo facility will be pieced together by shuttle crews scheduled for launch in mid-February and mid-April.
The addition of the European and Japanese modules will cap a six-month construction boom that will almost triple the size of the station. Its habitable volume at that point will exceed 43,000 cubic feet.
The size of resident station crews will grow, too, from three to six.
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