ESA Hands over NODE 3 to NASA during ceremony at Kennedy Space Center

A significant event in the life of the International Space Station took place on the 20th of November. ESA, the European Space Agency handed over a new interconnecting module for I.S.S. over to NASA. Node 3, or Tranquility as it was named by NASA, is one of Europe’s final major hardware contributions to the construction of I.S.S., along with a connected observation module known as Cupola

Ownership of ESA's Node 3, Tranquility, the final European-built habitable module for the International Space Station (ISS), was transferred from the European Space Agency to NASA on 20 November 2009.

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja

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Those in attendance at the handover were Bernardo Patti, ISS Program Manager in ESA's Directorate of Human Spaceflight, NASA's ISS Program Manager Michael Suffredini, Robert Cabana, NASA's Director of the Kennedy Space Center, William Dowdell, NASA's Deputy for Operations for ISS and Spacecraft Processing, Secondino Brondolo, Head of the Space Infrastructure at Thales Alenia Space Italy and selected media organizations.

ESA's Cupola was mated to Node 3 in September 2009, and is now ready for launch.

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja

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Tranquility and Cupola will be carried to I.S.S. by Space Shuttle Endeavor. The current launch date right now is February 4, 2010.

Tranquility will house many systems related to life support including oxygen generation and water recovery. Also, equipment such as a treadmill will be housed there for the purpose of physical conditioning of the crew.

Node 3 consists of a pressurised cylindrical hull 4.5 m in diameter with a shallow conical section enclosing each end. It is almost 7 m long and will weigh together with the Cupola over 13.5 tonnes at launch.

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja

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