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Japan's ISS Unit, Kibo, to Begin Final Testing Next Month
By Associated Press
posted: 01:20 pm ET
20 October 2001
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japan_iss_011020 TSUKUBA, Japan (AP) _ Japan unveiled its contribution to the international space station Saturday, a three-part research module that goes into its final testing phase next month. Called ``Kibo,'' the Japanese word for hope, its sections are being assembled by Japan's National Space Development Agency in a hangar outside Tokyo _ the last stage of a project begun in 1985. ``We've made a lot of progress,'' Kibo project director Kumiaki Shiraki said after the first public viewing of the assembled parts. ``We've finally made it to integrated testing.'' Kibo is the only Asian contribution to the international space station. After testing, it is scheduled to be transported to NASA's Kennedy Space Center sometime next year. Kibo will be launched by the U.S. space shuttle to the space station in three separate shots beginning in 2004. The research facility, which looks like a bus-sized tin can with an auto oil filter stuck on one side, has room for four astronauts to conduct experiments inside a pressurized cabin. It is also equipped with a 10-meter (30-foot) robot arm that can carry out experiments on an outside platform exposed to the vacuum of space. So far, the Kibo research pod has been seen as a bright spot in Japan's beleaguered space program. A history of mechanical failures, budget overruns and two failed launches was only recently reversed with the successful liftoff of Japan's next-generation H2-A rocket in August.
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