On December 6th evening (the early hours of the 7th in India) Columbus, Europe’s first manned laboratory in space, will be launched aboard the aging US space shuttle Atlantis (STS-122), on its last mission to the International Space Station (ISS). This is the second research facility that the station will be hosting; the American Destiny Laboratory, which it received in 2001, was its first. The ability of the ISS to handle research will now double. Further, it will be European Space Agency (ESA)’s most valuable piece of real estate on board.

This ESA laboratory is a cylinder with a diameter of approximately 4.5 meters and a length of nearly 7 meters. It can accommodate 3 astronauts. Made to last for 10 to 15 years, the laboratory will perform around 500 experiments annually. Initially, NASA’s ground control will activate the systems of this new European laboratory. Once functional, the Columbus Control Centre near Munich in Germany will take over. This will enable researchers in Europe to access their experiments from several user support centres located across the continent.

The experiments that Columbus will perform will be perched on a total of ten internal and four external payload racks. Shuttle Atlantis will be bringing in five of these ten internal racks and two of the four external ones along with the laboratory. Columbus will perform 5,000 experiments in 10 years: it is perplexing to gauge the effect of this landmark effort on our understanding of fundamental physical and biological processes. Further, it would be interesting to observe the impact these experiments will have on everyday life.

The five internal rack facilities, each of which is of the size of a telephone booth, are the Biolab, the Fluid Science Laboratory, the European Physiology Modules Facility, the European Drawer Rack and the European Transport Carrier. The remaining five internal experiment racks will be installed later.

The Biolab will perform experiments on cells, microorganisms and small invertebrates to evaluate the effect of microgravity on cellular mechanisms: the scientific results could, for example, help understand our understanding of immunology and bone demineralisation.

The Fluid Science Laboratory will study phenomena that are masked under gravity: for example, in the absence of gravity, it is possible to study diffusion controlled mass and heat transfer, since gravity-driven convective processes are negligible: an understanding might help optimising manufacturing processes on Earth. The European Physiology Module is supposed to study the effect of weightlessness on the human body: this might help understand problems like ageing and cardiovascular processes and osteoporosis.

The two external experiment facilities for Columbus will be anchored onto the outside of the laboratory module structure. One of these is the European Technology Exposure Facility, whose experiments require exposure to Space; the other is the Solar Monitoring Observatory, which will study phenomena relating to the Sun.
Two more additional external payloads will be brought in later. They include the Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space. This clock will provide a dependable time base for the different segments inside Columbus. It will also test a new generation of atomic clocks in orbit. 

On August 10, 1982 speaking at the United Nations in Vienna, Sir Arthur C Clarke had said: “In 1492, Christopher Columbus did something much more important than merely discover America… He opened up the road between the Old World and the New.”

Today, the New World we are seeking lies in Space. In a way, the present day Columbus will set sail to put European scientists in contact with the eerie weightlessness and unlimited vacuum of this new frontier.
So, what is the status of the ISS and when will the assembly be completed? The Columbus laboratory brings us to the last phase of the assembling of the space station. Next year, Kibo, a Japanese laboratory, will be fixed, making the number of research units in the ISS, three - Destiny, Columbus and Kibo.

A second crew module will be added in 2009 so that six permanent astronauts instead of the present three can reside. By the autumn of 2010 this outpost will be complete and with it the era of NASA’s winged work horses, as Space Shuttles are fondly called, will come to an end.

Dr Amitabha Ghosh
(The writer is a member of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Mission)