Tranquility Module Headed Toward Its New Home

The U.S. Tranquility module is headed toward its new home -- a berthing port on the International Space Station right across the hallway from the U.S. Quest airlock.

Operating the station's 57.5-foot robot arm, Endeavour pilot Terry Virts and mission specialist Kay Hire eased the 15-ton module -- also known as Node 3 -- from the shuttle's cargo bay about 11:15 p.m. The crane operators are doing the hoist from a work station in the U.S. Destiny laboratory.

"Node 3 is on its way out of the payload bay," Virts reported.

"I can see it from here," said Endeavour spacewalker Nicholas Patrick, who was near the U.S. Quest airlock at the time.

The Tranquility lab was funded by the European Space Agency as part of a barter agreement with NASA. The Europeans built the Tranquility module and the U.S. Harmony module in exchange for shuttle launch services for the European Columbus lab, which was delivered to the station in February 2008.

The Tranquility module should be in place on the port side of the U.S. Unity module within about two hours.

You can watch the lift live here in The Flame Trench. Click the NASA TV box on the right side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer and round-the-clock coverage of Endeavour's mission to the station. Be sure to refresh this page, too, for periodic updates.

ABOUT THE IMAGES: Click to enlarge the NASA TV screen grabs of the Tranquility module as it was being lifted from Endeavour's cargo bay. The module will be attached to the station on the port side of the U.S. Unity module, which links the U.S. and Russian sides of the station.