CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Europe’s shiny new $2 billion science lab, Columbus, was anchored to the international space station Monday by a team of astronauts laboring inside and out.
French astronaut Leopold Eyharts announced its arrival.
“Beautiful work,” radioed Mission Control.
It was an exhausting day-long affair that took more time than expected. The grand finale — the actual attachment of the 23-foot, 14-ton lab that was ferried up by Atlantis — took place at the end of a lengthy spacewalk by Rex Walheim and Stanley Love. The astronauts shouted and cheered when the lab reached its destination.
Germany’s recovering astronaut, Hans Schlegel, was stuck inside the whole time. He was supposed to float outside with Walheim to help with Columbus’ hookup but got sick after last week’s liftoff and was replaced by Love.
The last-minute switch in crew prompted NASA to delay Columbus’ installation by a day and to lengthen Atlantis’ space-station visit. U.S. and European space officials have refused to divulge the illness.
Even though two Americans ended up doing all the outside work, it was still a momentous occasion for the European Space Agency, which waited years to see Columbus fly. The lab was supposed to go up in 1992 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ first voyage to the New World, but space-station and then shuttle problems delayed everything.
Columbus expanded the nearly 10-year-old space station to eight rooms. It attached directly to the Harmony compartment that arrived last fall. Another of Harmony’s docking ports will be occupied by Japan’s new lab once it launches in the spring.
The 10 astronauts aboard the linked shuttle and station will wait until today before entering Columbus. Additional work on the lab’s exterior will be performed during a second spacewalk Wednesday and a third on Friday. Unless flight surgeons object, Schlegel is expected to make Wednesday’s spacewalk, along with Walheim.
