NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The installation of NASA's Harmony Node increases the living and working space inside the station to approximately 500 cubic meters (18,000 cubic feet). It also allows the addition of international laboratories from Europe and Japan to the station.

Image to right: This graphic shows the International Space Station's U.S. Node 2.

Harmony provides a passageway between three station science experiment facilities: the U.S. Destiny Laboratory, the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module, and the European Columbus Laboratory.

It also provides connecting ports for Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules, the Japanese H II Transfer Vehicle and the Pressurized Mating Adapter 2 to which space shuttles dock. The Space Station Robotic Arm, Canadarm2, can operate from a powered grapple fixture on the exterior of Node 2.

Under contract of the Italian Space Agency, Alenia Spazio in Turin, Italy, led a consortium of European sub-contractors to build the node.

It was built for NASA under a barter agreement with the European Space Agency in exchange for the launch of the European Columbus Laboratory by the space shuttle to the International Space Station.

Image to left: The International Space Station's U.S. Node 2 is shown in a processing facility.

Physical Description:

The aluminum node is 7.2 meters (23.6 feet) long and 4.4 meters (14.5 feet) in diameter. Its pressurized volume is 75.5 cubic meters (2666 cubic feet), and its launch weight is approximately 14,288 kilograms (31,500 pounds).

Node 2 arrived at Kennedy Space Center, Fla. on June 1, 2003 to begin final preparations for its launch on shuttle mission STS-120, station assembly flight 10A. The name for Node 2, Harmony, was announced on March 15, 2007.

RELATED LINKS + European Space Agency's ISS Web Site + European Space Agency's Node 2 Web Site + Unity Node + International Space Station Science Operation News