Mission Specialist Hans Schlegel looks closely at the hatch on the Columbus Research Laboratory in the Space Station Processing Facility.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. STS-122 Mission Specialist Hans Schlegel looks closely at the hatch on the Columbus Research Laboratory in the Space Station Processing Facility. Schegel represents the European Space Agency. The crew is at Kennedy to take part in a crew equipment interface test, which helps familiarize them with equipment and payloads for the mission. Among the activities standard to a CEIT are harness training, inspection of the thermal protection system and camera operation for planned extravehicular activities, or EVAs. The Columbus Lab is Europe’s largest contribution to the construction of the International Space Station. It will support scientific and technological research in a microgravity environment. Columbus, a program of ESA, is a multifunctional, pressurized laboratory that will be permanently attached to Node 2 of the space station to carry out experiments in materials science, fluid physics and biosciences, as well as to perform a number of technological applications. STS-122 is targeted for launch in December. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann