The Italian built US International Space Station (ISS) module Node 2 has been renamed Harmony in a US school competition. Harmony, with its largely aluminum structure, is 7.2m (23.6 feet) long and 4.4m in diameter. Its pressurized volume is 70 cubic meters (2,470 cubic feet) and its launch mass is approximately 13,600kg (30,000lb).
As a pressurized module it will act as an internal connecting port and passageway to additional ISS's international science labs and cargo spacecraft.
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In addition to increasing the living and working space inside the station enabling a future crew of six, starting in 2009, its exterior will also serve as a work platform for the space station's robotic arm.
Harmony is being prepared at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, for its Space Shuttle Atlantis flight, designated STS-120, to the ISS, which is targeted for no earlier than 26 August this year. Harmony joins three other named US modules on the station, the Destiny laboratory, the Quest airlock and the Unity node. Harmony is the first US space station module not named by NASA.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
