Astronauts on board the International Space Station used the station’s robotic arm to move the Italian-built Harmony module (aka Node 2) to its final location today. It’s now connected to the forward facing port of the US Destiny laboratory, making way for the upcoming European Columbus laboratory.
The Harmony module was delivered to the station during Discovery’s recent STS-120 mission. During the first spacewalk of the mission, the Harmony module was temporarily attached to the Unity module.
After Discovery returned to the Earth, the Expedition 16 crew relocated the space shuttle’s docking port, PMA2, from its current location on the Destiny module to the end of the Harmony module.
With all of that port shuffling out of the way, astronaut Daniel Tani used the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to move Harmony (and the attached docking port) to its final home, right at the front of ISS. This is where the shuttle will dock from here on out.
Harmony has been moved, but the astronauts still need to complete two more spacewalks on November 20th and 24th to fully outfit it.
The next launch of the space shuttle Atlantis, targeted for December 6th, will bring the European Columbus laboratory to the station. The astronaut crew of STS-122 will perform a series of spacewalks to connect the module to the starboard side of the Harmony module.
Original Source: ESA News Release