On February 7, NASA’s space shuttle Atlantis successfully lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying European Space Agency’s most advanced laboratory, Columbus, into space. Seven astronauts are in charge of getting Columbus safe and sound to the International Space Station (ISS) in the 11-day journey before the mission had run its course.

It took a while before the space shuttle Atlantis was successfully launched – two months of continuous delays and uncertainties – but the mission finally took off on Thursday, with the destination: International Space Station. It is for the second time in seven years that the ISS gets ready to receive a science laboratory, after the U.S.-built Destiny Laboratory Module, activated in February 2001.

On February 9, the space shuttle Atlantis is set to dock with the International Space Station at 18:23 CET. The following day, the Columbus Module will be removed from the space shuttle’s cargo by a robotic arm and docked to the starboard hatch of the Harmony module. Columbus will be ready to conduct experiments within hours after it has been docked.

Within the next days, several spacewalks are set to take place, the first of which will include astronaut Hans Schlegel, who will assist the manoeuvre of removing the Columbus Module from the space shuttle. Other two spacewalks will take place while Atlantis is docked to the ISS for installing external science payloads and handrails to the module.

Out of the team of seven, made up of commander of the crew and NASA astronaut Steve Frick, pilot Alan Pointdexter and mission specialists Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim, Stanley Love, and also Hans Schlegel and Leopold Eyharts from the European Space Agency, it will be the French astronaut Leopold Eyharts' mission to remain on the ISS for two more months to supervise the Columbus laboratory.

The Columbus laboratory, which is 7m long and weights 12.8 tons, will enable scientists aboard the International Space Station to conduct a series of experiments in a weightless environment on a wide range of topics, such as fluid physics, material sciences, technology, biology and life sciences, in conditions that are not possible on Earth.

After the Columbus Module will be connected to the ISS, the European Space Agency’s Columbus Control Center located in the German Space Agency facility in Oberpfaffenhofen will be responsible for monitoring Columbus’ activities and provide communications links with control centers from Russia and the United States.