WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

In the Operations and Checkout Building, the Joint Airlock Module is suspended in air after being removed from the vacuum chamber where it was tested for leaks. The module was in a vacuum environment equivalent to 210,000 feet or 40 miles in altitude. It will be placed in a payload canister and taken to the Space Station Processing Facility. There it will continue to undergo preflight processing for the STS-104 mission scheduled for launch aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis May 17, 2001. The Joint Airlock Module is the gateway from which crew members aboard the International Space Station will enter and exit the 470-ton orbiting research facility.