Japanese Exposed Facility Attached to Kibo

(Above) The Space Shuttle’s robotic arm grabs the Japanese Exposed Facility to move it out of Endeavour’s payload bay.

After a series of robotic arm “hand offs,” the Japanese Exposed Facility (JEF) was attached to the International Space Station’s Kibo laboratory at 7:29 p.m. EDT. The Exposed Facility is the final component of Kibo, Japan’s major contribution to the station, and will serve as a type of porch for experiments that require direct exposure to space.

The process involved three robotic arm systems. The space station and shuttle arms moved JEF from Endeavour’s payload bay to the Kibo laboratory and Kibo’s robotic arm was used to view the installation. There was a slight delay while verifying the structural latch between JEF and Kibo