Credit: NASA/ESA

The Columbus research module, Europe's largest contribution to the International Space Station, has finally arrived at its destination.

On 11 February, astronauts Rex Walheim and Stan Love conducted a spacewalk to connect the module to the station (clockwise from top left: Columbus is lifted from the shuttle, manoeuvred into position and docked onto the space station). Astronauts will now begin preparing the €700-million (US$1-billion) lab for experiments in biology, fluid science and physiology. A second spacewalk scheduled for 15 February will attach a materials-testing experiment and a solar observatory to the outside of the lab. But many larger experiments will be delayed until 2009, when the station's crew is set to increase to six (see Nature 450, 766–767 ; 2007). The arrival marks the end of years of delays for Columbus, which was originally set to launch around 2000.