The International Space Station (ISS) laboratory module, Destiny, has been leak-tested for seven days in a vacuum chamber at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC). NASA declines to comment on reports that the module leaked at a window seal.
The 8.5m (28ft)-long, 14,500kg (32,000lb) Destiny module was tested in a renovated vacuum chamber last used during the Apollo programme and located in the KSC Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF).
The chamber is one of two which were built in 1964 to support the space programme. The chambers were deactivated in 1975.
Destiny, a state-of-the-art science laboratory, is one of more than 98,000kg of ISS elements awaiting launch in the SSPF. The module is planned for launch on Space Shuttle mission STS98 on 18 January, 2001.
Source: Flight International
