Twelve years of design, development and hard work have come to fruition with the formal handover of Node 3 from ESA to NASA on 20 November 2009. The ceremony took place in the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA.

The ceremony was attended by Bernardo Patti International Space Station Programme Manager in ESA’s Directorate of Human Spaceflight, NASA’s International Space Station Programme Manager Michael Suffredini, Robert Cabana, NASA’s Director of the Kennedy Space Center, William Dowdell, NASA’s Deputy for Operations for ISS and Spacecraft Processing, Secondino Brondolo, Head of the Space Infrastructure at Thales Alenia Space Italy and selected media organisations.

Node 3, one of the three ISS interconnecting modules, will now undergo final activities for a February 2010 launch on Space Shuttle Endeavour together with the European-built Cupola Observation Module, which is already attached to Node 3.

Sources: ESA, NASA, Thales Alenia.