Spacelab

The laboratory comprised multiple components, including a pressurized module, an unpressurized carrier, and other related hardware housed in the Shuttle's cargo bay.

[2] Construction of Spacelab was started in 1974 by Entwicklungsring Nord (ERNO), a subsidiary of VFW-Fokker GmbH, after merger with Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) named MBB/ERNO, and merged into EADS SPACE Transportation in 2003.

It provided a marvelous opportunity and example of a large international joint venture involving government, industry, and science with our European allies.

The European effort provided the free world with a really versatile laboratory system several years before it would have been possible if the United States had had to fund it on its own.

[6] Spacelab was produced by European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), a consortium of ten European countries including:[7] In addition to the laboratory module, the complete set also included five external pallets for experiments in vacuum built by British Aerospace (BAe) and a pressurized "Igloo" containing the subsystems needed for the pallet-only flight configuration operation.

[8] Spacelab consisted of a variety of interchangeable components, with the major one being a crewed laboratory that could be flown in the Space Shuttle orbiter's bay and returned to Earth.

[9] However, the habitable module did not have to be flown to conduct a Spacelab-type mission and there was a variety of pallets and other hardware supporting space research.

[9] When the habitable module was not used, some of the support equipment for the pallets could instead be housed in the smaller Igloo, a pressurized cylinder connected to the Space Shuttle orbiter crew area.

[12] When the laboratory module was not used, but additional space was needed for support equipment, another structure called the Igloo could be used.

The Pallet, nicknamed Elvis, was used during the eight-day STS-46 mission, 31 July – 8 August 1992, when ESA astronaut Claude Nicollier was on board Space Shuttle Atlantis to deploy ESA's European Retrievable Carrier (Eureca) scientific mission and the joint NASA/ASI (Italian Space Agency) Tethered Satellite System (TSS-1).

[18] A Spacelab Igloo is on display at the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in the US.

[21] IPS would be mounted inside the payload bay of the Space Shuttle Orbiter, and could provide gimbaled 3-axis pointing.

Although superficially similar to other flights, they were actually the first and only non-U.S. and non-European human space missions with complete German and Japanese control.

A second similar mission, Deutschland 2 (Spacelab-D2, DLR-2, NASA designation STS-55), was first planned for 1988, but due to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, was delayed until 1993.

Spacelab-4, Spacelab-5, and other planned Spacelab missions were cancelled due to the late development of the Shuttle and the Challenger disaster.

[25] Spacelab was an extremely large program, and this was enhanced by different experiments and multiple payloads and configurations over two decades.

Spacelab missions conducted experiments in materials, life, solar, astrophysics, atmospheric, and Earth science.

But its completion marks something equally important: The commitment of a dogged, dedicated, and talented team drawn from ESA Governments, universities, and industries who stuck with it for a decade and saw the project through.