It’s time for yet another shuttle mission. Irrespective of the poor weather, the shuttle blasted off at around 11:38 p.m. local time. The Shuttle flight STS 120 took off in order to install the ‘Harmony’ node in the ISS. This time, the mission to the International Space Station (ISS), was a complete Italian show.
On Monday evening the weather conditions were poor for the launch. The blast off had to be postponed till Tuesday morning when the weather window cleared up. After the launch, Harmony will be on it’s way for a two week long mission. During the two weeks, about 5 space walks would be carried out.
Still wondering what exactly is Harmony? Well, here’s your answer. Harmony is going to be the living quarters for the ISS folks. It will be just an expansion of living and working space in the space station. It will be a link to three labs on board the ISS. Harmony will also act as a future docking station for the Japanese HTVs as well as other shuttle missions to the ISS.
Harmony space node weighs about 14 tonnes and is about 4.6m wide. Worldwide contributions are being made to the ISS. The US, Japan, Italy and Russia are the ones mostly contributing to the International space hub. This shuttle mission will pave way for the Columbus lab set to fly in December. I hope everything works out for the folks up there.
Image Credit: Zeto
