DO NOT POST EMPTY SHELL

HOUSTON - Astronauts will open the International Space Station?s (ISS) newest laboratory for business Tuesday when they christen the European-built Columbus module.

Spacewalkers helped attach the 10-ton research laboratory for the European Space Agency (ESA) Monday, adding a shiny new room to the ISS.

?We?re looking out our aft, upper starboard window and about five feet away is Columbus,? Atlantis shuttle commander Stephen Frick radioed to Mission Control after the module?s installation. ?We?re looking forward to getting in tomorrow.?

French astronaut Leopold Eyharts, a newly arrived station crewmember representing the ESA, will officially open Columbus later today when he and his crewmates open the hatch separating it from the rest of the station. The hatch opening is scheduled to begin at 8:50 a.m. EST (1350 GMT), with a full ingress to follow at about 2:55 p.m. EST (1955 GMT).

?I think there will be some emotion,? Eyharts told reporters before launch. ?Even though that?s just a partial ingress and it will not be fully activated.?

Overnight Monday, the 23-foot (7-meter) long Columbus siphoned power from the ISS electrical grid via a feed running through the station?s robotic arm, mission managers said. But later today, shuttle and ISS Expedition 16 astronauts will activate the 14.5-foot (4.5-meter) wide module?s permanent power and cooling systems.

?Tomorrow morning, we get the electricians and the plumbers in to hook us up,? Alan Thirkettle, station program manager for the ESA, told reporters late Monday. ?Leo will get himself nicely dressed up in his goggles and his mask and everything.?

Eyharts and Columbus? other first occupants will have to wear protective masks and goggles as a precaution against any debris that may have stowed away aboard the module during its launch into space. Once air circulates through the module, the research lab will be habitable without protective gear, mission managers said.

The new lab?s ESA control center near Munich, Germany is now online, with flight controllers working in three shifts to watch over Columbus around the clock alongside other centers governing the space station?s U.S. and Russian segments, Thirkettle added.

Columbus is the first new laboratory to arrive at the ISS since NASA?s Destiny module in 2001. Japan?s multi-module Kibo laboratory is also due to launch toward the station later this spring during NASA?s next two shuttle flights.

The joint 10-astronaut crew of Atlantis and the ISS will begin outfitting the interior of Columbus over the next several days, and add external experiments to the module during a spacewalk set for Friday.

Mission Control roused the crew early Tuesday with the song ?A Dream Come True? by Jim Brinkman, a tune selected for Atlantis? lead spacewalker Rex Walheim by his wife Margie and family.

Mission managers, meanwhile, are discussing whether to extend the shuttle crew?s already extended 12-day spaceflight by an extra day to squeeze one more day of Columbus outfitting into their schedule. The extra time would allow the crew to draw on the talents of ESA astronaut Hans Schlegel, a shuttle mission specialist, who is expected to return to spacewalking duty on Wednesday after sitting out Monday?s excursion due to an undisclosed illness.

?If you extend the mission one extra day, you get to keep Hans onboard and he is a specialist in Columbus commissioning,? said Kirk Shireman, NASA?s deputy ISS program manager.

But adding one more day to Atlantis? flight would require the shuttle to use oxygen supplies for its fuel cells that could be used to replenish high-pressure tanks used for ISS spacewalks, Shireman added.

?That?s the trade that we?re working together,? he said.

Atlantis? seven-astronaut crew is currently scheduled to return to Earth on Feb. 19.

NASA is broadcasting Atlantis' STS-122 mission live on NASA TV. Click here for SPACE.com's shuttle mission coverage and NASA TV feed. 

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