Music.
NARRATOR:Space shuttle Atlantis carried a laboratory named Columbus to
a port on the vast ocean of space during the STS-122 mission.
The voyage began Feb. 7, 2008, with a thundering liftoff from
NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Two days later, the seven astronauts of Atlantis spotted the
International Space Station - their construction site and temporary orbital home.
Commanded by NASA astronaut Steve Frick, the Atlantis team set out to lock
Columbus into place on the station four days into the mission.
Spacewalkers Rex Walheim and Stanley Love used the first spacewalk of the flight to
put the finishing touches on Columbus so it could be lifted from the payload bay.
Football player-turned-astronaut Leland Melvin stood at the
controls of the space station's robot arm.
He carefully maneuvered the 23-foot-long cylinder to a hatchway on the Unity connecting node.
European Space Agency astronaut Leopold Eyharts moved Columbus
the last few inches to make its connection at the station permanent.
NARRATOR:The laboratory is Europe's primary contribution to the International Space Station.
It joins NASA's own laboratory in space called Destiny.
With Columbus latched onto the space station, the combined crews of STS-122 and
Expedition 16 set about activating the cutting-edge research platform from the inside.
Eyharts and fellow European astronaut Hans Schlegel took the lead in setting up Columbus.
Schlegel climbed into a spacesuit the next day and joined
Walheim on the second spacewalk of the mission.
With help from Melvin and Love on the robotic arms,
Walheim and Schlegel installed a new component for the station's cooling system.
The third spacewalk focused again on Columbus and its space science mission.
Walheim joined forces with Love to venture into the vacuum of space protected by spacesuits.
Making their way from the International Space Station's Quest airlock, the spacewalkers
unbolted a pair of experiment suites from a cargo platform in Atlantis' payload bay.
The STS-122 astronauts said goodbye to the International Space Station crew.
Astronaut Dan Tani joined the Atlantis crew for the trip home after
four months in space, while Eyharts stayed aboard the station.
Atlantis returned to Kennedy on Feb. 20, capping 13 days in orbit
that sets the stage for Europe's space science.
CAPCOM:Welcome home Atlantis, welcome home Dan and congrats
on delivering Columbus to its new world.