The Space Shuttle Atlantis was launched successfully from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 7 February on the STS 98 mission - the 102nd in the programme - to the International Space Station (ISS).
Atlantis' mission is scheduled to last 10 days and will include three spacewalks. On 10 February the crew will use the Shuttle's robotic arm to mate the $1.4 billion Destiny laboratory module to the ISS.
Destiny will provide an orbital laboratory for long-term research in a reduced gravity environment. Research in biology, chemistry, physics, ecology and medicine will be conducted.
Although Destiny will be fitted with some science experiment racks later this year, it will not be fully operational as a science laboratory until 2006. However, the laboratory's 13-computer system will enable NASA to become the main controller of the ISS by taking over from the Russian computer systems on the Zarya and Zvezda modules.
Destiny will also provide the ISS with extra room and improved air conditioning.
Meanwhile, the command and control centre for scientific research aboard the ISS has been declared operational at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.
The Payload Operations Centre (POC), using the call-sign Huntsville, will be staffed 24h a day by three shifts of up to 19 controllers. It will link researchers on Earth with their experiments and with astronauts in orbit.
The POC will integrate research requirements and schedules, crew/ground training, plan scientific missions, manage ISS payload resources and science activity communications.
Source: Flight International
